(r 


Limited  edition  for  private  circulation  only, 
consisting  of  two  thousand  and  twenty-five 
numbered  copies.  Only  two  thousand  copies 
for  sale.  Published  September  1922. 


cNo._ 


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COPYRIGHT  NINETEEN-TWENTY-TWO 

COVICI  -cMcGEE 

Chicago 

<Rifehts  ^Reserved 


FANTAZIUS 


M  ALIA  RE 


Oath 


BEN  HECHT 


Drawings 
WALLACE  SMITH 


Chicago 
COVICI-McGEE 

192,2 


Opposite 


First  ^Drawing         ........  20 

Second  drawing          .......  42 

Third  ^Drawing       .....     ...  58 

Fourth  drawing          .......  74 

Fifth  ^Drawing       '.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .  88 

Sixth  ^Drawing       .     .     .     .     i     .     ^    .  94 

Seventh  Drawing       .     .     .     .     •     .     .  106 

Eighth  ^Drawing         .     ......  132 

cNinth  drawing         .*,,...  168 

Tenth  ^Drawing     .....     ...  174 


INine} 

907851 


\HIS  dark  and  wayward  book 
is  affectionately  dedicated  to 
my  enemies — to  the  curious 
ones  who  take  fanatic  pride 
in  disliking  me;  to  the  baf- 
fling ones  who  remain  en- 
thusiastically ignorant  of  my 
existence;  to  the  moral  ones 
upon  whom  Beauty  exer- 
cises a  lascivious  and  cor- 
rupting influence;  to  the 
moral  ones  who  have  relentlessly  chased  God 
out  of  their  bedrooms;  to  the  moral  ones  who 
cringe  before  Nature,  who  flatten  themselves 
upon  prayer  rugs,  who  shut  their  eyes,  stuff 
their  ears,  bind,  gag  and  truss  themselves  and 
offer  their  mutilations  to  the  idiot  God  they 


[Eleven] 


have  invented  (the  Devil  take  them,  I  grow 
bored  with  laughing  at  them};  to  the  anointed 
ones  who  identify  their  paranoic  symptoms  as 
virtues,  who  build  altars  upon  complexes;  to 
the  anointed  ones  who  have  slain  themselves  and 
who  stagger  proudly  into  graves  (God  deliver 
Himself  from  their  caress!};  to  the  religious 
ones  who  wage  bloody  and  tireless  wars  upon 
all  who  do  not  share  their  fear  of  life  (Ahy 
what  is  God  but  a  despairing  refutation  of 
Man?);  to  the  solemn  and  successful  ones  who 
gesture  with  courteous  disdain  from  the  depth 
of  their  ornamental  coffins  (we  are  all  cadavers 
but  let  us  refrain  from  congratulating  each 
other  too  courteously  on  the  fact);  to  the  prim 
ones  who  find  their  secret  obscenities  mir- 
rored in  every  careless  phrase ',  who  read  self 
accusation  into  the  word  sex;  to  the  prim  ones 
who  wince  adroitly  in  the  hope  of  being  mis- 
taken for  imbeciles;  to  the  prim  ones  who 


[Twelve'} 


fornicate  apologetically  (the  Devil  can-cans  in 
their  souls};  to  the  cowardly  ones  who  borrow 
their  courage  from  Ideals  which  they  forth- 
with defend  with  their  useless  lives;  to  the 
cowardly  ones  who  adorn  themselves  with  cas- 
trations (let  this  not  be  misunderstood);  to  the 
reformers — the  psychopathic  ones  who  publicly 
and  shamelessly  belabor  their  own  unfortunate 
impulses;  to  the  reformers  (once  again) — the 
psychopathic  ones  trying  forever  to  drown  their 
own  obscene  desires  in  ear-splitting  prayers  for 
their  fellowmans  welfare;  to  the  reformers — 
the  Freudian  dervishes  who  masturbate  with 
Purity  Leagues,  who  achieve  involved  orgasms 
denouncing  the  depravities  of  others;  to  the  re- 
formers (patience,  patience)  the  psychopathic 
ones  who  seek  to  vindicate  their  own  sexual 
impotencies  by  padlocking  the  national  vagina, 
who  find  relief  for  constipation  in  forbidding 
their  neighbors  the  water  closet  (God  forgives 


[Thirteen} 


them,  but  not  I);  to  the  ostracizing  ones  who 
hurl  excommunications  upon  all  that  is  not 
part  of  their  stupidity;  to  the  ostracizing  ones 
who  fraternize  only  with  the  worms  inside 
their  coffins  (their  anger  is  the  caress  incom- 
parable]; to  the  pious  ones  who,  lacking  the 
strength  to  please  themselves,  boast  interminably 
to  God  of  their  weakness  in  denying  themselves; 
to  the  idealistic  ones  who,  unable  to  confound 
their  neighbors  with  their  own  superiority,  join 
causes  in  the  hope  of  confounding  each  other 
with  the  superiority  of  their  betters  (invoked, 
but  I  am  not  done  with  them};  to  the  idealistic 
ones  whose  cowardice  converts  the  suffering  of 
others  into  a  mirror  wherein  stares  wretchedly 
back  at  them  a  possible  image  of  themselves;  to 
the  idealistic  ones  who,  frightened  by  this  pos- 
sible image  of  themselves,  join  Movements  for 
the  triumph  of  Love  and  Justice  and  the  over- 
throw of  Tyranny  in  the  frantic  hope  of  break- 


[Fourteen] 


ing  the  mirror;  to  the  social  ones  who  regard 
belching  as  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost, 
who  enamel  themselves  with  banalities,  who 
repudiate  contemptuously  the  existence  of  their 
bowels  (Ah,  these  theologians  of  etiquette,  these 
unctuous  circumlocutors,  a  pock  upon  them);  to 
the  pure  ones  who  masquerade  excitedly  as 
eunuchs  and  as  wives  of  eunuchs  (they  have 
their  excuses,  of  course,  and  who  knows  but  the 
masquerade  is  somewhat  unnecessary);  to  the 
pedantic  ones  who  barricade  themselves  heroic- 
ally behind  their  own  belchings;  to  the  smug 
ones  who  walk  with  their  noses  ecstatically  buried 
in  their  own  rectums  (I  have  nothing  against 
them,  I  swear);  to  the  righteous  ones  who  mas- 
turbate blissfully  under  the  blankets  of  their 
perfections;  to  the  righteous  ones  who  finger 
each  other  in  the  choir  loft  (God  forgive  me  if 
I  ever  succumb  to  one  of  them);  to  the  critical 
ones  who  whoremonger  on  Parnassus;  to  the 


{Fifteen} 


critical  ones  who  befoul  themselves  in  the  Tem- 
ples and  point  embitteredly  at  the  Gods  as  the 
sources  of  their  own  odors  (I  will  someday 
devote  an  entire  dedication  to  critics];  to  the 
proud  ones  who  urinate  against  the  wind  (they 
have  never  wetted  me  and  I  have  nothing  against 
them);  to  the  cheerful  ones  who  tirade  viciously 
against  all  who  do  not  wear  their  protective 
smirk;  to  the  cheerful  ones  who  spend  their 
evenings  bewailing  my  existence  (the  Devil  pity 
them,  not  I);  to  the  noble  ones  who  advertise 
their  secrets,  who  crucify  themselves  on  bill- 
boards in  the  quest  for  the  Nietzschean  solitude; 
to  the  noble  ones  who  pride  themselves  on  their 
stolen  finery;  to  the  flagellating  ones  who  go 
to  the  opera  in  hair  shirts,  who  excite  them- 
selves with  denials  and  who  fornicate  only  on 
Fast  Days;  to  the  just  ones  who  find  compen- 
sation for  their  nose  rings  and  sackcloth  by 
hamstringing  all  who  refuse  to  put  them  on 


[Sixteen] 


—all  who  have  committed  the  alluring  sins 
from  which  their  own  cowardice  fled;  to  the 
conservative  ones  who  gnaw  elatedly  upon  old 
bones  and  wither  with  malnutrition;  to  the 
conservative  ones  who  snarl,  yelp,  whimper 
and  grunt,  who  are  the  parasites  of  death; 
who  choke  themselves  with  their  beards;  to  the 
timorous  ones  who  vomit  invective  upon  all 
that  confuses  them,  who  vituperate,  against  all 
their  non-existent  intelligence  cannot  grasp; 
to  the  martyr  ones  who  disembowel  themselves 
on  the  battlefield,  who  crucify  themselves  upon 
their  stupidities;  to  the  serious  ones  who  mis- 
take the  sleep  of  their  senses  and  the  snores  of 
their  intellect  for  enviable  perfections;  to  the 
serious  ones  who  suffocate  gently  in  the  bore- 
dom they  create  (God  alone  has  time  to  laugh 
at  them);  to  the  virgin  ones  who  tenaciously 
advertise  their  predicament;  to  the  virgin  ones 
who  mourn  themselves,  who  kneel  before  key- 


\.S  event  een] 


holes;  to  the  holy  ones  who  recommend  them- 
selves tirelessly  and  triumphantly  to  God  (I 
have  never  envied  God  His  friends,  nor  He, 
mine  perhaps);  to  the  never  clean  ones  who 
bathe  publicly  in  the  hysterias  of  the  mob;  to 
the  never  clean  ones  who  pander  for  stupidity; 
to  the  intellectual  ones  who  play  solitaire  with 
platitudes,  who  drag  their  classrooms  around 
with  them;  to  these  and  to  many  other  abomi- 
nations whom  I  apologize  to  for  omitting,  this 
inhospitable  book,  celebrating  the  dark  mirth 
of  Fantazius  Mallare,  is  dedicated  in  the  hope 
that  their  righteous  eyes  may  never  kindle  with 
secret  lusts  nor  their  pious  lips  water  erotically 
from  its  reading — in  short  in  the  hope  that 
they  may  never  encounter  the  ornamental 
phrases  I  have  written  and  the  ritualistic  lines 
Wallace  Smith  has  drawn  in  the  pages  that 
follow. 


[Eighteen] 


MALIARE 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 


[I] 


IANTAZIUS  MALLARE 

considered  himself  mad 
because  he  was  unable  to 
behold  in  the  meaningless 
gesturings  of  time,  space  and 
evolution  a  dramatic  little 
pantomime  adroitly  cen- 
tered about  the  routine  of 
his  existence.  He  was  a 
silent  looking  man  with  black  hair  and  an 
aquiline  nose.  His  eyes  were  lifeless  because 
they  paid  no  homage  to  the  world  outside  him. 

When  he  was  thirty-five  years  old  he  lived 
alone  high  above  a  busy  part  of  the  town.  He 
was  a  recluse.  His  black  hair  that  fell  in  a 
slant  across  his  forehead  and  the  rigidity  of  his 
eyes  gave  him  the  appearance  of  a  somnam- 


[Twenty-one] 


FAKTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

bulist.    He  found  life  unnecessary  and  sub- 
mitted to  it  without  curiosity. 

His  ideas  were  profoundly  simple.  The 
excitement  of  his  neighborhood,  his  city,  his 
country  and  his  world  left  him  unmoved.  He 
found  no  diversion  in  interpreting  them.  A 
friend  had  once  asked  him  what  he  thought 
of  democracy.  This  was  during  a  great  war 
being  waged  in  its  behalf.  Mallare  replied: 
"Democracy  is  the  honeymoon  of  stupidity." 

There  lived  with  him  as  a  servant  a  little 
monster  whom  he  called  Goliath  and  who  was 
a  dwarfed  and  paralytic  negro.  Goliath's  age 
was  unknown.  His  deformities  gave  him  the 
air  of  an  old  man  and  his  hunched  back  made 
him  seem  too  massive  for  a  boy.  But  in  study- 
ing him  Mallare  had  concluded  that  he  was 
a  boy. 

Goliath  had  been  one  of  the  first  symptoms 
of  Mallare's  madness.  He  had  brought  the  little 
monster  home  from  an  amusement  park  one 
summer  night.  Goliath  had  been  standing 
doubled  up,  his  pipe  stem  arms  hanging  like  a 


[Twenty-two} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  £ 

baboon's,  his  enlarged  black  head  lifted  and 
his  furious  eyes  staring  at  a  Wheel  of  Fortune. 

When  they  left  the  confetti-electrics  of 
the  park  behind,  Mallare  spoke  to  the  dwarf 
whose  wrinkled  hand  he  was  holding. 

"If  you  come  home  with  me  I  will  make 
you  a  servant  and  give  you  a  fine  red  suit  to 
wear.  Also,  I  will  call  you  Goliath  for  no 
reason  at  all,  since  I  am  at  war  with  reason." 

Goliath  said  nothing  but  sat  staring  hap- 
pily out  of  the  window  of  an  automobile  as 
they  rode  home. 

The  home  of  Fantazius  Mallare  was  filled 
with  evidences  of  his  past.  There  were  clay 
and  bronze  figures  and  canvases  covered  with 
paintings.  These  had  been  the  work  of  his 
hands.  It  was  to  be  seen  that  he  had  once  given 
himself  with  violence  to  the  creation  of  images. 
And  for  this  reason  he  was  still  known  among 
a  few  people  as  an  artist. 

In  the  days  when  he  had  worked  to  create 
images  Mallare  had  been  alive  with  derisions. 


[Twenty-three] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

He  desired  to  give  them  outline.  But  the 
desire  went  from  him.  The  brilliant  fancies 
of  his  thought  began  slowly  to  bore  him.  The 
astounding  images  that  still  bowed  themselves 
into  his  mind  became  like  a  procession  of  men- 
dicants seeking  alms  of  him.  He  folded  his 
hands  and  with  an  interested  smile  watched 
his  genius  die. 

At  the  time  of  this  curious  tragedy  Mallare 
was  thirty.  He  kept  a  Journal  in  which  he 
wrote  infrequently.  There  was  in  this  Journal 
little  of  interest.  Apparently  he  had  amused 
himself  during  his  youth  jotting  down  items  of 
preposterous  unimportance. 

"I  saw  a  man  with  a  red  face,"  he  would 
write  one  week.  The  next  he  would  add  a 
line,  "There  are  seven  hundred  and  eighty-five 
normal  strides  between  the  lamp-post  and  my 
front  door."  Turning  a  page  a  month  later  he 
would  meticulously  set  down  the  date,  the  hour 
of  the  day,  the  direction  of  the  wind  and  under 
it  write  out,  "I  have  a  stomach  ache  from  eat- 
ing peaches." 


[  Twenty-four} 


FANTAZIUS      eM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

The  Journal  bristled  with  innocuous 
informations.  An  acquaintance  of  the  period, 
interested  in  Mallare's  work  as  an  artist,  smiled 
and  commented,  "These  are,  no  doubt,  symbols. 
A  psychological  code  into  which  you  have 
translated  great  inner  moments." 

Mallare  answered,  "On  the  contrary. 
They  are  the  only  thoughts  I  have  had  in  which 
I  could  detect  no  reason.  It  has  amused  me  to 
put  down  with  great  care  the  few  banalities 
which  have  normalized  my  days.  They  are 
very  precious  to  me,  although  they  have  no 
value  in  themselves. 

"It  is  the  ability  to  think  such  absurdities 
as  you  have  read  that  has  kept  me  from  suicide. 
The  will  to  live  is  no  more  than  the  hypnotism 
of  banalities.  We  keep  alive  only  by  maintain- 
ing, despite  our  intelligence,  an  enthusiasm  for 
things  which  are  of  no  consequence  or  interest 
to  us. 

"That  I  saw  a  man  with  a  red  face  aroused 
in  me  a  gentle  curiosity  lacking  in  words  or 
emotion.  The  desire  to  live  is  compounded  of 


[Twenty-five] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

an  infinity  of  such  gentle  curiosities  which 
remain  entirely  outside  of  reason.  This  never- 
satisfied  and  almost  non-existent  curiosity  we 
have  toward  things,  masquerades  under  the 
intimidating  guise  of  the  law  of  self-preserva- 
tion. Man  is  at  the  mercy  of  life  since,  his  intel- 
ligence perceiving  its  monotony  and  absurdity, 
he  still  clings  to  it,  fascinated  by  the  accumu- 
lated rhythm  of  faces,  impressions,  and  events 
which  he  despises. 

"It  is  a  form  of  hypnosis,  and  these  words 
I  have  written  in  my  Journal  are  the  absurdi- 
ties by  which  life  seduced  me  from  abandoning 
it.  I  am  grateful  to  them  and  have  therefore 
preserved  them  carefully." 

The  history  of  Mallare's  madness,  how- 
ever, is  to  be  found  in  this  Journal.  There  are 
two  empty  pages  that  stare  significantly.  The 
empty  pages  are  a  lapse.  It  was  during  this 
lapse  that  Mallare  smiled  with  interest  at  the 
spectacle  of  his  disintegration.  There  follows, 
then,  a  sudden  excited  outburst,  undated.  In  it 
the  beginnings  of  his  madness  pirouette  like 
tentative  dancers. 


[  Twenty-six] 


FANTAZIUS      cMALLARE 

"Perhaps  the  greatest  miracle  is  that  which 
enables  man  to  tolerate  life,"  the  passage  starts, 
"which  enables  him  to  embrace  its  illusions 
and  translate  its  monstrous  incoherence  into 
delightful,  edifying  patterns.  It  is  the  miracle 
of  sanity.  To  stand  unquestioning  before  mys- 
teries, to  remain  an  undisturbed  part  of  chaos, 
ah!  what  an  adjustment!  Content  and  even 
elate  amid  the  terrible  circle  of  Unknowns, 
behold  in  this  the  heroic  stupidity  of  the 
sane.  .  .  a  stupidity  which  has  already  out- 
lived the  Gods. 

"Man,  alas,  is  the  only  animal  who  hasn't 
known  enough  to  die.  His  undeveloped  senses 
have  permitted  him  to  survive  in  the  manner 
of  the  oyster.  The  mysteries,  dangers,  and 
delights  of  the  sea  do  not  exist  for  the  oyster. 
Its  senses  are  not  stirred  by  typhoons,  impressed 
by  earthquakes  or  annoyed  by  its  own  insignifi- 
cance. Similarly,  man! 

"The  complacent  egomania  of  man,  his 
tyrannical  indifferences,  his  little  list  of  ques- 
tions and  answers  which  suffices  for  his  wisdom, 


[Twenty-seven] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

these  are  the  chief  phenomena  or  symptoms  of 
his  sanity.  He  alone  has  survived  the  ages  by 
means  of  a  series  of  ludicrous  adjustments, 
until  today  he  walks  on  two  legs — the  crown- 
ing absurdity  of  an  otherwise  logical  Nature. 
He  has  triumphed  by  specializing  in  his  weak- 
nesses and  insuring  their  survival ;  by  disputing 
the  simple  laws  of  biology  with  interminable 
banalities  labelled  from  age  to  age  as  religions, 
philosophies  and  laws. 

"Unable,  despite  his  shiftiness,  to  lie  the 
the  fact  of  his  mortality  and  decomposition  out 
of  existence,  he  has  satisfied  his  mania  for  sur- 
vival by  the  invention  of  souls.  And  so  behold 
him — spectacle  of  spectacles — a  chatty  little 
tradesman  in  an  immemorial  hat  drifting  good- 
naturedly  through  a  nightmare. 

"It  is  for  this  ability  to  exist  unnaturally 
that  he  has  invented  the  adjective  sane.  But 
here  and  there  in  the  streets  of  cities  walk 
the  damned — creatures  denied  the  miracle  of 
sanity  and  who  move  bewilderedly  through 
their  scene,  staring  at  the  flying  days  as  at  the 
fragments  of  another  world.  They  are  con- 


[Twcnty-eight] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

scious  of  themselves  only  as  vacuums  within 
which  life  is  continually  expiring. 

"Alas,  the  damned!  From  the  depths  of 
their  non-existence  they  contemplate  their  fel- 
lowman  and  perceive  him  a  dwarf  prostrate 
forever  before  solacing  arrangements  of  words ; 
an  homunculus  riding  vaingloriously  on  the 
tiny  river  of  ink  that  flows  between  monstrous 
yesterdays  and  monstrous  tomorrows ;  a  baboon 
strutting  through  a  mirage." 

The  history  of  Mallare's  madness  begins 
thus.  And  the  pages  continue.  The  writing  on 
them  seems  at  a  glance  part  of  a  decoration  in 
black  and  white.  The  letters  are  beautifully 
formed  and  shaded.  They  resemble  laboring 
serpents,  dainty  pagodas,  vines  bearing  strange 
fruits  and  capricious  bits  of  sculpture. 

To  the  end  Mallare  fancied  himself  aware 
of  the  drift  and  nuance  of  his  madness.  Its  con- 
volutions seemed  neither  incomprehensible 
nor  mysterious  to  him. 

An  intolerable  loathing  for  life,  an  illu- 
minated contempt  for  men  and  women,  had 


[Twenty-nine] 


FANTAZIUS      eM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

long  ago  taken  possession  of  him.  This  philo- 
sophic attitude  was  the  product  of  his  egoism. 
He  felt  himself  the  center  of  life  and  it  became 
his  nature  to  revolt  against  all  evidences  of  life 
that  existed  outside  himself.  In  this  manner 
he  grew  to  hate,  or  rather  to  feel  an  impotent 
disgust  for,  whatever  was  contemporary. 

When  his  normality  abandoned  him,  he 
avoided  a  greater  tragedy.  In  a  manner  it  was 
not  Mallare  who  became  insane.  It  was  his 
point  of  view  that  went  mad.  Although  there 
are  passages  in  the  Journal  that  escape  cohe- 
rence, the  greater  part  of  the  entries  are  simple 
almost  to  naivete.  They  reveal  an  intellect  able 
to  adjust  itself  without  complex  uprootings  to 
the  phenomena  engaging  its  energies.  The  first 
concrete  evidence  of  the  loathing  for  life  that 
was  to  result  in  its  own  annihilation  appears  in 
a  passage  beginning  abruptly — 

"Most  of  all  I  like  the  trees  when  they  are 
empty  of  leaves.  Their  wooden  grimaces  must 
aggravate  the  precisely  featured  houses  of  the 
town.  People  who  see  my  work  for  the  first 


[Thirty} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

time  grow  indignant  and  call  me  sick  and  arti- 
ficial. (Bilious  critics!)  But  so  are  these  trees. 
"People  think  of  art  in  terms  of  symmetry. 
With  a  most  amazing  conceit  they  have  decided 
upon  the  contours  of  their  bodies  as  the  stand- 
ards of  beauty.  Therefore  I  am  pleased  to  look 
at  trees  or  at  anything  that  grows,  unhandi- 
capped  by  the  mediocritizing  force  of  reason, 
and  note  how  contorted  such  things  are." 

Mallare'spointof  view  toward  his  world — 
the  attitude  that  went  mad — was  nothing  more 
involved  than  his  egoism.  His  infatuation  with 
self  was  destined  to  arrive  at  a  peak  on  whose 
height  he  became  overcome  with  a  dizziness. 
He  wrote  in  his  Journal: 

"It  is  unfortunate  that  I  am  a  sculptor,  a 
mere  artist.  Art  has  become  for  me  a  tedious 
decoration  of  my  impotence.  Itisclearlshould 
have  been  a  God.  Then  I  could  have  had  my 
way  with  people.  To  shriek  at  them  obliquely, 
to  curse  at  them  through  the  medium  of  clay 
figures,  is  a  preposterous  waste  of  time.  A 
wounded  man  groans.  I,  impaled  by  life,  emit 
statues. 


[Thirty-one] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

aAs  a  God,  however,  I  would  have  found 
a  diversion  worthy  my  contempt.  I  would  have 
made  the  bodies  of  people  like  their  thoughts — 
crooked,  twisted,  bulbous.  I  would  have  given 
them  faces  resembling  their  emotions  and  con- 
verted the  diseases  of  their  souls  into  outline. 

"What  fatuous,  little  cylindrical  creatures 
we  humans  are!  With  our  exact  and  placid 
surfaces  that  we  call  beauty.  And  these  grave 
and  noble  houses  we  erect! 

"Yes,  I  ought  to  have  been  a  God.  I  should 
have  had  my  way  with  people  then.  I  could 
have  created  a  world  whose  horrors  would  have 
remained  a  consoling  flattery  to  my  cynicism." 

There  are  entries  that  follow  whose  sig- 
nificance is  lost  in  a  serpentine  rhetoric.  They 
hint  at  nights  of  critical  terrors.  During  the 
writing  of  them  Mallare  was  engaged  in  a  des- 
perate pursuit  of  himself.  He  was  escaping. 
He  perceived  his  thoughts  racing  from  his 
grasp  like  Maenads  down  a  tangled  slope.  The 
dread  of  finding  himself  abandoned  brought 
his  will  into  life.  If  he  were  to  go  mad  he 


[Thirty-two] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

would  leap  upon  his  mania  and  ride  it — quietly 
into  darkness.  He  would  be  a  gay  rider  astride 
his  own  phantoms.  Rather  that  than  let  the 
first  insane  capering  of  his  intellect  unhorse 
him  and  leave  him  gibbering  after  a  vanished 
mount. 

The  incoherence  of  the  Journal  suddenly 
glides  into  an  adagio.  The  panic  has  ended. 
And  the  lifeless  eyed  man  again  smiles  tri- 
umphant out  of  the  pages. 

"My  room  is  red.  It  is  hung  with  red  cur- 
tains. I  have  bought  only  red  things  to  put  in 
it.  The  sun  coming  through  my  red  curtains 
reddens  the  air  of  the  room. 

"I  prefer  to  live  in  this  painted  gloom 
because  it  is  possible  I  hate  the  sunlight.  I 
hate  even  my  rivals  the  trees.  Today  I  walked 
and  found  trees  that  resembled  too  closely 
people  passing  under  them.  One  is  impotent 
before  such  betrayal. 

"But  here  in  my  rooms  I  find  an  almost 
complete  annihilation  of  life.  I  am  bored  with 
inventing  causes  for  my  hatred.  There  is  a 


[Thirty-three] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

diversion  on  earth  called  humanity — creatures 
full  of  enamelled  lusts  and  arrogant  decays 
who  go  about  smiling  and  slyly  obeying  laws 
which  protect  them  from  each  other.  But  they 
no  longer  divert  me. 

"They  tell  me  of  health  and  sanity.  And 
I  say  sanity  is  the  determined  blindness  which 
keeps  us  from  seeing  one  another.  More  than 
that,  of  course:  which  keeps  us  from  seeing 
ourselves.  And  health  is  the  lame  artifice  of 
our  bodies  which  keeps  us  from  loathing  one 
another.  I  see  and  I  loathe.  Yet  I  must  beware 
of  falling  to  sleep  in  explanations." 

A  month  or  a  year  may  have  passed 
between  this  and  the  continuation.  Whatever 
the  period,  a  clarity  arrived.  Mallare's  mind 
grappling  with  the  nightmare  shadows  engulf- 
ing it,  distorted  his  reason  to  give  them  outline 
and  was  saved.  The  writing,  however,  becomes 
more  labored  in  appearance  as  if  the  letters 
of  words  were  now  decorations  in  themselves. 

"I  have  listened  for  years  to  the  prattle 
of  men  who  call  themselves  egoists.  It  is  a 


[Thirty-four] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

title  by  which  they  have  sought  to  identify 
me.  To  label  a  mystery  suffices  for  its  dis- 
missal and  thus  they  seek  to  dismiss  me.  There 
is  in  egoism,  however,  a  depth  to  which  all 
but  myself  are  blind.  I  have  found  this  depth 
in  myself  and  out  of  it  rises  a  definition  which 
I  must  consider  cautiously.  There  is  but  one 
egoist  and  that  is  He  who,  intolerant  of  all 
buc  Himself,  sets  out  to  destroy  all  but  Him- 
self. Egoism  is  the  despairing  effort  of  man 
to  return  to  his  original  Godhood;  to  return 
to  the  undisputed  and  triumphant  loneliness 
which  was  His  when  as  a  Creator  He  moulded 
the  world  to  His  whims  and  before  He  divided 
Himself  into  the  fragments  of  race  and  nature. 
This  is  the  explanation  out  of  the  depth. 

"I  must  be  cautious  and  keep  my  eyes 
open.  Secrets  fly  from  the  blind.  Mount,  I 
say,  and  ride  this  secret  and  observe  its  direc- 
tion. To  return  thus  to  Godhood  means  to 
destroy  All.  And  I  were  madder  than  I  am 
to  play  with  this  prospect,  unless,  perhaps, 
there  lie  concealed  in  the  elements,  chemistries 


[Thirty-five] 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

still  unknown  which  might  be  utilized  for 
such  destruction. 

"As  it  is,  I  can  with  my  thought  deny 
and  re-create  and  impose  upon  the  world  of 
reality  a  world  of  phantoms  more  pleasing  to 
my  nature.  In  my  red  room  I  sit  and  give 
birth  to  persuasive  horrors.  People  shaped 
like  dead  trees.  People  freed  from  the  monot- 
onous hypocrisy  with  which  a  despondent 
Nature  endows  their  outlines.  I  have  become 
aware  that  lobsters,  beetles,  crabs,  and  all  the 
crustacean  monsters  that  abound  are  not  the 
abnormal  accidents  of  creation,  any  more  than 
were  the  animate  gargoyles  of  prehistoric  eras. 
They  are  the  things  which  an  Ego  intent  upon 
the  diversion  of  truth  fashioned  in  the  begin- 
ning. Each  thing  to  seem  as  each  thing  was. 
But  the  courage  of  this  Ego  deserted  Him  and 
He  grew  frightened  when  He  came  to  give 
body  to  His  most  useless  creation — Thought. 
And  He  compromised.  Yes,  I  could  live 
among  people  fashioned  truthfully  in  their 
own  images  as  are  the  crustaceans."  . 


[Thirty-six} 


FANTAZIUS      eMALLARE 

With  this  entry  Mallare  found  it  neces- 
sary to  destroy  the  work  his  hands  had  created. 
He  attacked  the  canvases  and  figures  in  his 
red  room.  Goliath  who,  preoccupied  with  his 
own  deformities,  had  remained  indifferent  to 
his  master,  serving  him  faithfully  however, 
listened  to  Mallare  one  night 

Sitting  in  the  center  of  the  room,  his  black 
hair  grown  into  a  long  slant  across  his  pale 
forehead,  Mallare  talked  to  his  servant  as  a 
man,  still  asleep,  reciting  a  dream. 

"Here  in  this  room,  Goliath,"  he  said, 
"are  interesting  works  of  art  which  I  am  about 
to  destroy.  On  the  canvases  are  dithyrambic 
burlesques  in  color,  vicious  fantasies,  despair- 
ing caricatures.  My  fingers  fashioned  them 
and  I  remember  the  pleasant  sleep  each 
brought  me.  But  now  I  must  beware  of  sleep. 
My  egomania,  like  a  swollen  thing,  has  become 
impossible  to  articulate  or  to  reduce  to  the 
impotent  ironies  of  clay  and  paint.  But  I 
must  beware  of  falling  asleep  under  it. 

"My  friends  have  vanished  as  naturally 
as  if  by  death.  I  have  forbidden  them  to  come. 


[Thirty-seven] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

This  disturbs  them,  but  see  to  it,  Goliath,  that 
no  one  ever  enters  my  room  unless  I  bring 
them.  Frighten  them  if  they  come. 

"Tonight,  while  there  remained  a  little 
sanity,  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  kill  myself. 
But  I  have  changed  it.  I  will  destroy  instead 
my  work.  This  is  because  I  find  the  compro- 
mise easier  and  the  destruction,  perhaps,  more 
interesting.  I  feel  disinclined  to  abandon  the 
things  I  loathe.  The  world  with  its  nauseous 
swarm  of  life,  its  monstrous  multiplications 
which  are  the  eternal  insult  to  the  Omniscience 
I  feel,  still  holds  me.  I  am  caught  in  a  tangle 
and  I  remain  suspended  and  inanimate,  in  the 
depth  of  a  nightmare.  But  with  your  aid, 
Goliath,  I  will  continue  tenaciously  mimick- 
ing an  outward  sanity  so  that  people,  when 
they  see  me,  will  go  away  happy  in  the  assur- 
ance that  I  am  as  stupid  as  they." 

Rising  from  his  chair  Mallare  attacked, 
one  by  one,  the  canvases  and  statues.  Goliath 
watched  him  in  silence  as  he  moved  from  ped- 
estal to  pedestal  from  which,  like  a  company 
of  inert  monsters,  arose  figures  in  clay  and 


[Thirty-eight] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

bronze.  The  first  of  them  was  a  man  four 
feet  in  height  but  massive-seeming  beyond 
its  dimensions.  Mallare  had  entitled  it  "The 
Lover." 

Its  legs  were  planted  obliquely  on  the 
pedestal  top,  their  ligaments  wrenched  into 
bizarre  muscular  patterns.  Its  body  rose  in 
an  anatomical  spiral.  From  its  flattened  pelvis 
that  seemed  like  some  evil  bat  stretched  in 
flight,  protruded  a  huge  phallus.  The  head  of 
the  phallus  was  enlivened  with  the  face  of  a 
saint.  The  eyes  of  this  face  were  raised  in 
pensive  adoration.  At  the  lower  end  of  the 
phallus,  the  testicles  were  fashioned  in  the 
form  of  a  short-necked  pendulum  arrested  at 
the  height  of  its  swing.  The  hands  of  the 
figure  clutched  talon-like  at  the  face  and  the 
head  was  thrown  back  as  if  broken  at  the  neck. 
Its  features  were  obliterated  by  the  hands 
except  for  the  mouth  which  was  flung  open 
in  a  skull-like  laugh. 

The  figure  on  the  whole  was  the  flayed 
caricature  of  a  man  done  so  cunningly  that 


[Thirty-nine] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

through  the  abortive  hideousness  of  its  out- 
lines, its  human  character  remained  untouched. 

Mallare  swung  the  figure  by  its  base 
against  the  pedestal  until  it  splintered  and  fell 
to  pieces.  He  stood  whispering  to  himself — 

"This  was  the  lover.  My  statue  of  the 
lover.  Dead,  now." 

A  dozen  similar  caricatures  in  clay  and 
bronze  vanished  under  his  attack.  Standing 
against  the  wall  and  blinking  at  the  rutilant 
glare  of  the  room,  Goliath  the  dwarf  waited 
nervously.  He  had  become  aware  that  his 
master  was  acting  strangely.  A  look  of  feroc- 
ity slowly  came  into  the  deep  black  of  his 
face.  His  misshapen  body  trembled. 

Mallare,  the  destruction  ended,  turned  to 
him. 

"And  finally  a  last  figure,"  he  murmured. 
"Goliath,  too.  Do  you  agree,  Goliath?  You 
will  find  a  congenial  company  in  the  souls  of 
these  friends  I  have  butchered." 

Goliath  shook  his  head  vigorously. 

"Go  'way,"  he  answered.  Mallare  nodded. 


[Forty] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"Thanks,"  he  smiled.  "You  reminded  me 
in  time.  It  is  easy  to  mistake  you  for  one  of 
my  creations.  Although  I  never  created  such 
eyes,  improbable  eyes  alive  with  murders.  Go 
to  bed." 

Alone  amid  the  wreckage,  Mallare  turned 
to  his  Journal.  A  precise  smile  was  on  his 
lips  and  his  eyes  slanted  toward  the  debris  on 
the  floor  as  if  he  were  watching  the  fragments, 
fearfully.  His  hair  made  a  black  triangle 
against  his  forehead.  He  began  to  write : 

"I  am  too  clever  to  go  mad.  To  go  mad 
is  to  succumb  to  the  sanity  of  others.  Since  I 
avoid  death,  I  must  be  wary  of  his  misshapen 
brother.  Yet,  I  can  prove  to  my  satisfaction 
tonight  that  I  am  mad.  I  have  destroyed  some- 
thing. It  was  because  the  intricate  presences 
of  life  awaken  too  many  despairs  in  me. 

"Now  I  am  alone.  I  must  be  cautious  of 
my  thought.  I  feel  words  like  rivals  in  my 
head.  Alas,  I  must  think  in  words.  Words 
are  the  inevitable  canonizations  of  life.  But 
worse,  they  are  property  loaned  me  and  not 


[Forty-one] 


FANTAZIUS     eMALLARE 

my  own.  I  must  have  my  own  and  live  with  it 
entirely.  Yet  there  is  some  comfort  in  words. 
They  are  not  entirely  sullied  by  their  promis- 
cuity. Words  are  like  nuts  people  pass  each 
other  without  ever  opening.  The  insides  of 
words  are  often  virginal.  But  many  words — 
too  many  words — constitute  intelligence  and 
intelligence  is  the  stupidity  which  enables  man 
to  imprison  himself  in  lies. 

"Years  have  passed  and  I  still  live.  I  do 
not  look  for  death.  Death  is  too  simple  a 
variant  of  destruction.  My  cleverness  demands 
more  of  me  than  to  destroy  the  world  by  hid- 
ing myself  from  it.  And  there  is  a  song  of 
windows  in  the  high  streets  that  sometimes 
relieves  the  black  tension  of  my  mind. 

"It  is  important  now  that  I  retrace  my 
way  toward  a  makeshift  of  Omnipotence.  But 
for  this  I  will  have  to  find  a  woman." 


[Forty-two] 


[II] 


|T  was  autumn.  The  air  was 
colored  like  the  face  of  a 
sick  boy.  Upon  the  streets 
rested  a  windless  chill.  The 
pavements  were  somber  as 
during  rain.  There  was  an 
absence  of  illusion  about 
buildings.  They  stood,  high 
thrusts  of  brick,  stone  and 
glass,  etched  geometrically  against  a  denuded 
sky. 

Fantazius  Mallare  walked  slowly  toward 
his  home.  Over  his  head,  trees  without  leaves 
stamped  their  gnarled  and  intricate  contours 
on  the  shadowed  air.  A  pallor  covered  the 
roofs.  It  was  afternoon  but  a  moon-like  lone- 
liness haunted  the  autumn  windows. 


[Forty-three] 


FANTAZIUS     cMALLARE 

Mallare  lived  in  another  world.  Neither 
trees  nor  buildings  conveyed  themselves  to  his 
thought  Within  his  own  world  he  was  sane. 
His  relation  to  the  phantoms  and  ideas  which 
peopled  his  mind  was  a  lucid  one.  Mallare's 
world  was  his  thought.  He  had  retired  within 
himself,  dragging  his  senses  after  him. 

The  street  through  which  he  walked  was 
like  an  unremembered  dream.  The  faces  that 
passed  him  vanished  before  his  eyes.  He 
walked,  seeing  nothing  that  was  visible,  hear- 
ing nothing  that  had  sound.  He  had  accom- 
plished an  annihilation. 

Three  months  had  passed  since  he  had 
written  in  his  Journal  the  command  to  find  a 
woman.  She  was  waiting  for  him  now  as  he 
returned  to  his  home.  In  the  three  months  he 
had  devoted  himself  to  her  transformation. 

Mallare  no  longer  raged.  In  the  lucidity 
of  his  thought  was  a  strange  lapse.  There  had 
vanished  from  it  all  images  of  life  except  those 
of  his  own  creation.  His  thought  emptied  of 
its  projective  sense,  he  found  it  difficult  for 


[Forty-four] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

him  to  translate  his  ideas  in  their  relation  to 
the  world  from  which  they  had  escaped.  Yet 
he  wrote  in  his  Journal; 

"I  am  aware  of  something  that  no  longer 
lives  in  my  mind.  Dim  outlines  haunt  me. 
Dead  memories  peer  through  the  windows  of 
my  tower.  Life  grimaces  vaguely  on  the  edges 
of  my  madness.  I  can  no  longer  see  or  under- 
stand. The  world  is  a  memory  that  expires 
under  my  thought.  I  am  alone.  Yet  how 
much  of  me  must  still1  be  the  world !  My  dear- 
est phantoms  are,  after  all,  no  more  than  dis- 
torted reminiscences.  I  fear,  alas,  this  is  the 
truth.  Yet  it  is  pleasant  to  be  alone  with  one's 
senses,  to  feel  an  independence." 

The  woman  awaiting  him  was  a  curious 
creature.  He  had  found  her  with  a  family  of 
gypsies  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city.  She  was 
young — eighteen.  His  money  had  bought  her 
release.  She  was  called  Rita  and  after  two 
weeks  she  had  agreed  to  come  home  with  him. 
An  old  man  in  the  caravan  had  said  to  her: 

"This  man  is  crazy.  You  can  see  that  by 
his  eyes  and  the  way  he  walks.  I  have  listened 


[Forty-five] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

to  him  for  two  weeks  and  I  know  he  is  crazy. 
But  you  go  with  him,  Rita.  He  is  lonely  and 
wants  a  woman.  You  go  with  him  and  obey 
him.  You  are  young  and  he  will  teach  you. 
Perhaps  even  you  will  fall  in  love  with  him. 
You  are  an  ignorant  child.  Your  mind  is  like 
a  baby's.  And  perhaps  you  will  not  under- 
stand that  he  is  crazy." 

Among  the  gypsies  with  whom  she  had 
lived  Rita  was  known  as  a  simple  one.  She 
was  never  to  be  trusted  to  enter  the  cities  they 
visited.  She  would  remain  with  the  wagons, 
helping  to  cook  and  wash.  When  men  came 
to  her  in  the  evening  and,  sitting  beside  her, 
sang  and  played  on  guitars,  she  would  listen 
for  a  moment  and  then  run  off.  The  old  ones 
of  the  caravan  said: 

"She  is  not  grown  up.  We  must  treat  her 
like  a  child  because  there  is  still  only  a  child's 
heart  in  her.  She  is  beautiful  but  without 
sense.  Some  day  she  will  make  a  good  wife. 
But  there  is  danger  that  she  may  give  her  body 
to  strangers.  Because  she  does  not  know  about 
such  things.  We  must  be  careful  for  her." 


[Forty-six] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

Sitting  along  the  summer  roads  outside 
the  city  Mallare  talked  to  the  child.  She  lis- 
tened without  understanding  but  after  days 
had  passed,  dreams  of  the  man  with  the  black 
hair  slanting  across  his  forehead  came  to  her 
when  she  was  alone.  So  when  the  Old  One  of 
the  caravan  said — 

"You  may  go  with  this  stranger.  You  can 
go  away  if  you  wish" ;  she  nodded  and  smiled 
with  happiness. 

Mallare  brought  her  home.  And  she  had 
lived  in  the  carnelian  room  that  was  colored 
like  the  inside  of  a  Burgundy  bottle  ever  since. 
Goliath  was  her  slave.  Mallare  was  her  God. 

At  first  he  had  said  little  to  her.  She 
wanted  him  to  talk  but  he  neither  talked  nor 
paid  other  attention.  He  brought  her  ribbons 
and  dresses,  trinkets,  jewels,  and  playthings. 
She  had  a  room  in  which  to  sleep  but  all  day 
she  sat  in  the  room  that  was  hung  with  heavy 
red  curtains  through  which  the  sun  filtered  in 
a  rouged  and  somber  glow.  Vermilion  fabrics 
covered  a  long  couch  against  the  wall.  Red 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

carpets,  red  tapestries,  tawny  vases  of  brass 
inlaid  with  niello;  crimsons  and  varying  reds 
struck  an  insistent  octave  of  color  around  her. 

Mallare  was  absent  during  the  days.  She 
wondered  where  he  went.  He  would  return 
in  the  evenings  with  gifts.  This  had  continued 
for  a  month.  Then  had  begun  a  more  curious 
existence. 

One  night  Mallare  had  said  to  her: 

"You  must  never  talk  to  me  any  more  but 
listen  always  to  what  I  say.  If  you  remain 
here  you  will  have  everything  you  wish.  But 
you  must  not  go  outside.  Do  you  understand?" 

She  closed  her  black  eyes  and  nodded. 
He  continued — 

"I  desire  to  make  something  out  of  you. 
If  you  stay  here  you  will  learn  what  I  want 
you  to  be." 

Thereafter  he  had  sat  for  days  at  a  time 
in  the  room  with  her.  Goliath  brought  them 
food. 


{.Forty-fight} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

To  Rita  the  smiling  man  who  never 
ceased  talking  to  her  became  like  one  of  the 
Djinns  the  old  ones  of  the  caravan  used  to  tell 
stories  about,  in  the  nights  along  the  roads. 
The  words  he  spoke  became  a  languorous  mist 
in  her  ears.  She  listened  and  understood  only 
that  this  man  with  the  black  hair  slanted  across 
his  forehead  and  the  silent  eyes,  was  talking  to 
her.  This  made  her  happy. 

At  night  she  slept  alone  dreaming  of  the 
sound  of  his  voice.  Her  heart  became  rilled 
with  awe.  The  strange  room  with  its  red  col- 
ors was  a  Temple  such  as  she  had  heard  about 
but  never  seen.  Mallare  was  a  God  who  sat 
in  its  center  and  around  whom  grew  a  world 
of  mysteries. 

When  she  awoke  her  heart  grew  eager. 
Perhaps  he  would  let  her  sit  closer  to  him  this 
new  day.  Perhaps  his  hands  would  touch  her 
hair.  She  dreamed  that  some  time  he  would 
play  a  guitar  and  sing  to  her  as  the  men  of  the 
caravan  used  to  do.  But  if  that  happened  she 
would  not  run  away  as  before.  She  would 
draw  close  to  him  and  kiss  his  hands. 


[Forty -nine] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

But  the  two  months  had  passed  without 
change.  Except  that  the  days  became  for  Rita 
only  the  sound  of  a  voice  in  her  heart  and  the 
image  of  a  face  staring  out  of  her  secret 
thoughts. 

She  wore  fine  clothing.  Rings  crowded 
her  fingers  until  her  hands  seemed  little  effigies 
of  themselves.  Her  black  hair  was  looped  over 
her  ears.  A  gold  band  was  around  it.  She 
would  have  been  happy  if  he  had  sat  closer  to 
her  while  he  talked.  Then  the  mystery  of  the 
words  he  spoke  would  not  have  separated 
them.  Now  she  could  lie  on  the  couch,  her 
head  on  her  hand,  her  eyes  burning  and  watch 
his  lips  move. 

Her  mind  never  asked  what  he  was  say- 
ing. His  words  carried  him  away.  They  were 
part  of  the  mystery  of  him.  Out  of  them  she 
gleaned  fugitive  meanings  as  one  recognizes 
for  an  instant  familiar  faces  in  a  passing 
crowd.  But  she  was  content  to  lie  watching 
him.  A  lethargy  filled  her.  The  days  were 
like  parts  of  a  dream.  At  night,  alone,  she  lay 


[Fifty] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

awake  remembering  them  as  a  child  playing 
with  delicious  fantasies. 

She  was  asleep  on  the  couch  when  Mal- 
lare  came  in.  Goliath  shuffled  away  as  his 
master  appeared.  He  had  been  standing  in  the 
center  of  the  room,  staring  at  the  sleeping 
Rita,  his  eyes  rolled  up  and  his  huge  black 
head  rigid. 

She  woke  and  Mallare  smiled  at  her.  Her 
eyes  grew  large  and  her  red  lips  parted. 

Mallare,  seating  himself,  studied  her  with 
calm.  She  was  his  creation.  He  was  giving 
her  life.  His  mind  was  beginning  to  conceive 
her  as  a  part  of  the  phantoms  that  lived  in  him 
and  that  were  his  world.  This  illusion  diverted 
him.  His  objective  sense  fast  vanishing,  he 
was  gradually  perceiving  her  as  a  tangible 
outline  of  his  own  hallucinations. 

She  was  no  longer  the  childish-minded 
gypsy  girl  he  had  found  with  the  caravan.  She 
was  a  fantasy  of  Mallare.  There  was  no  body 
to  her  but  the  body  of  his  curious  thoughts.  A 
silent  and  adoring  image  of  his  brain  stared 


[Fifty-one] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

back  at  him  from  the  vermilion  couch.    This 
pleased  him. 

His  madness  had  translated  her  into  his 
inner  world.  At  moments  a  gleam  of  doubt  dis- 
turbed his  illusion.  As  he  talked  a  conscious- 
ness of  her  eyes  would  tangle  his  words.  Her 
eyes  would  become  two  dark  intruders,  and  he 
would  rise  and  walk  away. 

"I  must  be  careful,"  he  would  mutter 
nervously. 

Away  from  her  the  illusion  would  leave 
him  and  his  thought  would  consider  lucidly 
the  situation  it  had  created. 

"My  madness  plays  with  a  dangerous 
toy,"  he  pondered.  "She  is  a  woman  and  her 
eyes  are  filled  with  desire.  Perhaps  she  has  not 
even  understood  the  things  I  have  told  her.  I 
must  be  careful,  however,  not  to  betray  my 
illusions  with  this  lingering  sanity.  When  I 
am  with  her  I  conceive  her  a  phantom — a 
something  which  has  stepped  out  of  my  mad- 
ness to  divert  it.  Her  body  becomes  like  one 
of  the  dreams  in  my  brain.  Her  little  hands 


[Fifty-two} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

reach  like  cobra  heads  among  my  intimacies. 
She  is  very  beautiful  that  way.  In  my  mind  I 
caress  her  as  a  part  of  myself.  I  speak  to  her 
and  it  seems  as  if  my  words  are  talking  to  each 
other.  Yet  her  eyes  intrude  and  frighten  me." 

Now,  as  he  studied  her,  the  illusion  he 
desired  again  filled  him.  His  eyes  turned 
inward  saw  only  a  dark-eyed  phantom,  a 
woman  of  mist  that  was  no  more  than  a  hallu- 
cination drifting  through  his  thought.  He 
addressed  this  image  of  Rita  softly. 

"It  is  pleasant  to  be  in  love  with  you,"  he 
said.  "Because  love  hitherto  has  been  one  of 
the  abominations.  In  the  world  I  have 
destroyed  love  existed.  It  was  the  foul  par- 
adox of  egoism.  Man,  feeling  suddenly  the 
torment  of  his  incompleteness,  embraced 
woman.  He  was  inspired  by  the  mania  to  trans- 
form his  desires  into  possessions. 

"His  heart  taunted  him.  His  brain  filled 
with  despairing  vacuums.  And  he  said  to  him- 
self, 'I  have  become  a  deserted  room.  A  woman 
will  enter.  Her  beauty  and  desire  will  be  gifts 


[Fifty-three] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

that  will  furnish  me  once  more.    She  will  be 
something  I  possess  within  myself.' 

"In  this  illusion  was  contained  the  foul 
paradox  of  egoism.  For  in  the  world  I  have 
destroyed,  egoism  died  in  the  embrace  of  love. 
The  mania  for  possession  which  flattered  man 
into  seeking  woman  was  no  more  than  a 
shrewd  mirage  of  his  senses,  that  tricked  him 
into  the  fornications  necessary  only  incident- 
ally to  himself  but  vital  to  the  world  which  he 
fancied  love  obliterated. 

"For  all  these  strenuous  admirations  of 
beauty — what  are  they  but  the  subterfuges  by 
which  man  hopefully  conceals  his  lacking 
egoism  from  himself?  He  admires  the  tints  of 
hair.  His  thought  trembles  before  the  curve 
of  a  neck.  Graceful  images  unravel  in  his 
mind  at  the  sight  of  a  woman's  breasts.  To 
himself  he  declaims,  'I  am  in  love  with  her. 
She  is  beautiful.  I  will  take  her  beauty  in  my 
arms.  There  is  an  emptiness  in  me  that  clam- 
ors for  the  charm  and  mystery  of  this  woman.' 


[Fifty-four} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"Accordingly  he  embraces  her.  There 
is  tenderness  between  them.  Their  bodies, 
indeed,  seem  to  have  become  overtones  that 
mate  in  a  delicious  and  inaudible  melody.  But 
this  melody  must  be  brought  closer  so  that  its 
beauty  may  be  more  definitely  enjoyed.  This 
melody  must  be  played  on  instruments  and  not 
on  thin  air. 

"And,  selah!  The  egoist  beautifying  him- 
self with  love,  finds  himself  removing  his 
shoes,  tearing  off  his  underwear,  fondling  a 
warm  thigh  and  steering  his  phallus  toward 
its  absurd  destiny.  The  transvaluations — the 
ineffable  and  inarticulate  mysteries  he  fan- 
cied himself  embracing — turn  out  to  be  a 
woman  with  her  legs  wrapped  around  him. 
His  desires  for  the  infinite  sate  themselves  in 
the  feeble  tickle  of  orgasm.  Cerberus  seduced 
from  his  Godhood  by  a  dog  biscuit! 

"As  for  those  animals  whose  egoism  has 
never  escaped  their  testicles,  they  are  not  to  be 
spoken  of  as  men.  Their  imagination  dis- 
charges itself  through  their  penis.  They  are 


{Fifty- five] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

the  husbands  in  the  world  I  have  destroyed. 
They  understand  neither  beauty  nor  disillu- 
sion. The  vagina  is  a  door  at  which  they 
deliver  regularly  like  industrious  milkmen. 
They  are  the  sexual  workmen  to  whom  forni- 
cation is  as  much  a  necessity  as  poverty  is  to 
incompetents. 

"I  alone  have  found  the  way  in  which  to 
love.  I  love  and  grow  richer.  I  am  mad.  Yet 
how  admirable  my  madness  is!  My  eyes  and 
senses  are  enslaved  by  a  radiant  phantom.  As 
I  talk  your  outlines  grow  luminous.  Your  eyes 
become  like  conquered  Satans.  They  crawl 
inside  my  brain  like  amorous  spiders.  Your 
lips  are  the  libretto  of  a  dream.  Your  breasts 
are  little  blind  faces  raised  in  prayer.  Your 
body  flutters  like  a  rich  curtain  before  the  door 
of  enchantments.  I  look  within.  Thus  I  pos- 
sess you  and  my  senses  without  leaving  them- 
selves, enter  the  infinity  of  my  mind." 

Mallare's  eyes  closed.  He  remained  rigid 
in  his  chair.  A  murmur  that  Rita  could  no 


[Fifty-six] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

longer  hear  came  from  his  lips,  as  if  voices 
were  speaking  out  of  a  depth. 

"Rita  .  .  .  Rita,"  they  said,  "See,  eyes 
prowling  like  golden  tigers.  Cobra  hands 
playing  over  my  soul.  Mine  ...  I  walk  with 
you  through  gardens,  deeper  and  endless." 

The  murmur  ended.  Rita,  watching  from 
the  couch,  lay  trembling.  Warm  tongues 
spoke  within  her  body.  Her  breasts  tightened 
until  they  felt  impaled  on  their  own  nipples. 
Her  child's  mind  was  alive  with  impulses 
driving  her  like  slow  whips.  She  would  crawl 
shivering  to  his  feet.  Her  breasts  would  press 
their  pain  against  his  knees.  Desire  like  an  im- 
possible anger  filled  her.  She  closed  her  eyes 
and  felt  herself  moving  from  the  couch.  She 
would  lie  at  his  feet. 

Her  hands  reached  out.  Mallare  regarded 
her  blankly  for  a  moment.  A  wildness  slowly 
filled  his  eyes.  He  sprang  up.  Goliath  crouch- 
ing in  a  corner  of  the  dim  room  watched  his 
master  raise  the  velveted  figure  in  his  hands 
and  fling  it  with  a  cry  against  the  wall. 


[Fifty-seven} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"Fool!"  he  shouted.    "Intruder!" 

Goliath  cringed  as  his  master  rushed  past 
him  to  the  door.  He  listened  to  his  feet  flying 
down  the  stairs  toward  the  night. 

Rita  lay  with  her  head  hanging  over  the 
couch.  Her  lips  were  opened.  Her  teeth 
gleamed  like  little  deaths.  She  lay  motionless 
as  Mallare  had  flung  her. 

Goliath  shuffled  to  the  couch.  His  huge 
black  face  stared  over  her  closed  eyes. 


[Fifty-eight] 


[HI] 


E  REMEMBERED  that  he 
had  thrown  the  girl  against 
the  wall  and  he  paused.  The 
street  was  black.  Great  shad- 
ows balanced  themselves  on 
his  eyes. 

"I  have  escaped  from 
myself,"  he  muttered. 

He  stood  trying  to  remember  himself.  But 
his  mind  was  like  a  night.  Shapes  tip-toed 
through  its  dark.  A  hooded  figure  loomed  in 
his  mind.  It  swung  toward  him  as  if  it  were 
flying  out  of  his  eyes.  Other  figures  swept  by. 
They  assumed  strange  postures  as  they  passed. 
His  thoughts  regarded  them  ti redly.  He 


[Fifty-nine] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

desired  to  join  the  figures  fleeing  out  of  him. 
Then  he  would  vanish  with  them. 

"I  am  too  clever  for  that,"  he  murmured 
aloud.  "Yet  it  would  be  pleasing.  To  think  in 
dark,  hooded  figures;  ah — they  have  adven- 
tures! And  I  would  sit  like  a  night  alive  with 
witches." 

He  stared  with  a  smile  at  the  street. 

"I  no  longer  see  or  understand,"  he  whis- 
pered. His  hands  felt  his  sides. 

"Yet  here  I  am.  There  is  a  life  within  me 
that  I  dare  not  enter.  I  must  remember  this. 
Write  'Forbidden'  over  its  black  doors.  To 
succumb  to  my  madness  would  be  to  lose  it." 

He  resumed  his  walk. 

"She  intruded,"  he  remembered.  "Per- 
haps I  have  killed  her.  That  would  be  pleas- 
ant. Except  that  she  was  necessary  as  an  image. 
I  am  the  mirror  and  she  is  an  image  alive  in 
me.  Her  desire  is  a  happy  shadow  I  embrace." 

Mallare's  eyes  opened  to  the  night. 


[Sixty] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"Strange,"  he  thought,  "I  see  and  yet  what 
I  look  at  remains  invisible.  But  tonight  out- 
lines dance.  The  night  is  a  maniac  suffering 
from  ennui.  His  dark  eyes  are  weary  with  the 
emptiness  they  create.  Vainly  he  searches  for 
life,  his  eyes  devouring  it,  and  leaving  only  his 
own  image  for  him  to  contemplate. 

"I  am  not  so  mad  as  that.  Or  I,  too,  would 
sit  like  the  night  gorged  with  monotonous  shad- 
ows. Instead,  I  translate.  A  memory  of  sanity 
gives  diverting  outline  to  the  shadows  in  me. 
I  am  not  a  maniac  like  the  night.  My  mind 
closes  like  a  darkness  over  the  world  but  I 
enjoy  myself  walking  amid  insane  houses,  star- 
ing at  windows  that  look  like  drunken  octagons, 
observing  lamp  posts  that  simper  with  evil, 
promenading  fan  shaped  streets  that  scribble 
themselves  like  arithmetic  over  my  face. 

"These  must  be  the  things  I  look  at.  But 
they  are  my  improvement.  The  world  is  not  so 
outrageous  if  one  is  sufficiently  mad  to  pull  it 
into  taffy  shapes  and  incredible  scrawls. 


[Sixty-one] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"But  I  must  be  warned.  My  madness 
sought  to  avenge  itself  at  her  intrusion.  It  over- 
came me  with  its  anger.  She  was  not  content 
to  let  me  possess  the  beautiful  image  of  her. 
Although  I  have  explained  the  thing  to  her 
clearly.  It  is  possible  she  does  not  understand. 
I  will  talk  to  her  again  with  greater  lucidity. 
I  will  tell  her  that  I  do  not  desire  her  except 
as  a  dream  for  my  mirror.  But  I  have  said  that 
to  her." 

Under  the  green-white  sputter  of  a  street 
lamp,  Mallare  halted.  His  mind  was  preoccu- 
pied with  unraveling  the  mystery  of  Rita.  He 
stood,  a  tall  figure  without  a  hat,  a  slant  of  black 
hair  across  his  forehead,  and  ignoring  eyes. 
A  beggar  in  a  ragged  overcoat  shuffled,  head 
down,  toward  him. 

"She  is  only  a  child,"  Mallare  thought, 
"but  it  is  evident  that  passion  already  lifts  her 
breasts.  Her  simplicity  is  betrayed  by  incipient 
orgasms  prowling  for  an  outlet.  This,  she  fan- 
cies, is  love.  It  is  fortunate  she  is  a  virgin.  Still, 
I  must  not  rely  too  greatly  on  that.  For  vir- 
ginity is  an  insidious  bed  fellow  for  a  maiden. 


[Sixty-two] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

Forefingers  and  phallic  shadows  have  ravished 
her  in  dreams.  And  if  she  is  a  virgin  in  spirit 
as  well  as  body,  she  is  still  a  woman — and  there- 
fore dangerous. 

"Ah,  what  loathsome  and  lecherous  mouths 
women  are!  Offering  their  urine  ducts  as  a 
mystic  Paradise!  Stretching  themselves  on 
their  backs  and  seducing  egoists  with  the  unct- 
uous lie  of  possession.  The  mania  for  posses- 
sion— that  most  refined  of  all  instincts — the 
most  heroic  of  insanities !  How  easily  they  cir- 
cumvent it!  To  desire  is  merely  to  love.  But 
to  create  in  oneself  the  objects  of  desire — that 
is  to  be  mad  and  above  life.  Beyond  it. 

"I  must  explain  this  to  her.  If  she  loves 
me  well  enough  she  will  understand.  All  things 
are  possible  in  love.  I  will  explain  to  her  that 
I  possess  her  at  will  without  the  loathsome 
absurdities  of  sex." 

The  beggar  paused  and  mumbled  beside 
Mallare.  Watery,  reddened  eyes  waited 
patiently f or thealms asked.  Mallarehadf alien 
into  silence.  He  stood  regarding  the  beggar 


{Sixty-three] 


FANTAZIUS      oM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

intently.  His  thought  labored  for  a  moment, 
scratching  in  silence  at  doors  swinging  slowly 
shut.  His  thought  withdrew  and  Mallare  was 
alone. 

He  stood  up  tall  and  stern  in  a  darkened 
chamber.  His  eyes  stared  intently  at  the  figure 
of  Rita.  Her  face,  pale  and  alive,  smiled 
imploring  in  the  mendicant's  place.  He  talked, 
but  the  beggar,  still  patient,  heard  no  sound. 

"You  have  followed  me,"  said  Mallare 
inside  his  chamber.  "Very  well.  It  is  useless 
to  explain  matters  to  you.  You  pursue  me  with 
your  lecherous  body.  I  have  warned  you.  Now 
I  will  kill  you.  I  will  take  your  throat  in  my 
hands  and  that  will  be  an  end  of  you.  You  will 
fall  down." 

The  beggar  uttered  a  cry  of  terror.  Mal- 
lare's  hands  had  reached  suddenly  to  his  throat 
and  their  fingers,  like  inviolable  decisions, 
closed  on  it.  The  ragged  one  screamed.  A  man 
with  a  slant  of  black  hair  across  his  forehead 
who  had  stood  smiling  at  him  had  without 
sound  or  warning  reached  out  his  hands  to 


[Sixty-four] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

murder  him.  The  beggar  gasped  and  writhed, 
his  eyes  staring  with  horror  into  the  immobile 
face  of  his  assailant.  And  within  himself  Mal- 
lare  continued  the  strange  conversation. 

"You  see  how  simple  it  is,"  he  said.  "After 
you  are  dead  I  will  continue  to  enjoy  for  a  time 
the  uninterrupted  image  of  you.  You  will 
haunt  my  thought  until  you  grow  dim.  But  I 
will  possess  the  vanishing  shadow.  .  .  .  But 
now  you  die." 

Mallare  tightened  his  hold  on  the  beggar's 
neck  and  the  man's  cries  ended.  His  head  fell 
forward.  Mallare  held  the  dead  figure  erect, 
shaking  it  gently  and  smiling  at  the  one  in  his 
thought. 

"Ah,  Rita,"  he  whispered,  "it  is  over  now." 

His  hands  released  the  throat  they  were 
holding.  The  beggar  fell  to  the  ground.  Mal- 
lare stared  at  the  body  and  then  knelt  beside 
it.  His  hands  passed  over  the  dead  face. 

"Poor  Rita,"  he  continued.  "No  longer 
dangerous." 


[Sixty-five] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

He  bent  over  and  kissed  the  matted  hair 
of  the  dead  man. 

"Death,"  he  said  aloud  as  he  rose,  "is  an 
easy  friendship.  You  would  have  been  sorry  a 
moment  ago.  But  now  you  are  neither  sorry 
nor  glad.  See,  your  body  is  a  humble  little 
gratitude." 

Mallare  walked  away.  His  thought,  like 
a  cautious  monitor,  re-entered  the  doors  that 
had  closed  upon  it. 

"Curious,"  he  said  aloud,  "she  followed  me 
and  I  killed  her.  Madness  is,  alas,  too  logical. 
I  remember  almost  nothing  of  the  incident.  It 
is  a  part  of  the  shadows  not  of  me.  Still  I  know 
it  exists.  My  hands  feel  tired.  But  there  is 
nothing  to  regret.  She  came  too  close.  And 
now  she  lies  dead  in  a  strange  street.  They  will 
find  her  and  perhaps  ask  me  about  it.  What  do 
I  know?  Nothing.  My  memory  is  innocent.  It 
is  after  all  my  superior.  I  must  remain,  unques- 
tioning, at  its  side.  This  is  a  pact." 

He  returned  to  his  home.  The  familiar 
room  greeted  him  like  a  friendship.  He  sat 


[Sixty -six] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

down  and  closed  his  eyes.   Goliath  had  gone  to 
bed.  And  she  was  no  longer  here. 

His  hands  felt  tired.  He  was  alone  again. 
But  he  would  remember  her.  Eyes  like  con- 
quered Satans.  They  would  crawl  again  like 
spiders  through  his  brain.  Breasts  like  little 
blind  faces  raised  in  prayer.  Her  body  flut- 
tering like  a  rich  curtain  before  the  door  of 
enchantments.  These  were  still  his. 

"Tomorrow,  Rita,"  he  murmured  aloud  to 
his  thoughts. 

A  figure  stirred  on  the  couch.  She  had 
watched  him  come  in,  his  hair  disheveled,  his 
body  dragging.  Her  eyes  had  followed  him  as 
he  sat  down.  But  she  had  waited  motionless. 
Perhaps  he  had  come  back  to  kill  her.  She  lay 
shivering.  Then  his  voice  called  her  name. 

Standing  slowly,  Rita  waited.  He  was 
asleep  but  he  had  called  her.  She  moved  cau- 
tiously over  the  heavy  carpet.  Mallare  opened 
his  eyes.  He  looked  at  the  burning-eyed  figure 
of  the  girl  his  hands  remembered  having  killed 
in  the  strange  street. 


[Sixty-seven] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"A  hallucination,"  his  thought  muttered. 
"But  the  dead  do  not  come  back." 

The  scene  under  the  green-white  street 
lamp  played  its  swift  detail  through  his  mind 
again.  He  remembered  the  white  throat,  the 
pale,  imploring  face.  A  shudder  passed  his 
heart.  He  had  murdered  her.  Yet  here  she 
stood  once  more,  looking  at  him. 

Mallare  smiled. 

"Ah,"  he  thought.  "Mad,  completely  mad. 
Yet  it  is  not  as  unpleasant  as  I  feared.  Why, 
indeed,  am  I  startled?  This  is  what  I  desired. 
To  create  for  myself  out  of  myself.  And  here 
my  phantoms  have  become  so  rich  and  strong 
that  they  confront  me.  I  desired  to  be  God. 
And  I  have  answered  my  own  prayer.  It  is  an 
illusion.  Its  substance  is  only  the  life  my  mad- 
ness gives  it.  Yet  I,  who  am  the  companion  of 
my  madness,  may  enjoy  it." 

Rita  shivered  again  as  he  laughed. 

"Come  closer,"  he  whispered  to  her.  "Or 
are  you  too  timorous  a  hallucination,  Rita? 


[Sixty-eight} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

Come  closer  and  let  me  see.  What  a  curious 
sensation !  To  caress  the  figures  of  my  madness ! 
Then  there  is  no  longer  any  sanity  in  me.  For 
my  fingers  are  aware  of  hair.  Ah,  dear  child, 
Mallare  is  completely  mad  since  at  last  his 
senses  betray  him.  But  they  betray  him  sweetly. 
For  though  I  babble  to  myself  you  have  no 
existence,  though  I  smile  at  the  thought  of 
caressing  a  phantom,  my  senses  derive  a  mys- 
terious pleasure  from  this  contact  with  noth- 
ingness. Curious  .  .  .  curious  .  .  .  come 
closer,  Rita.  Now  smile  at  me.  Yes,  your  lips 
move.  You  are  an  automaton  born  of  my  words. 
Give  me  your  hand.  It  is  warm  and  trembling. 
Ah,  my  phantom  is  in  love  with  me.  But  that 
love,  too,  is  an  illusion  I  create.  No,  do  not 
come  too  close.  Let  me  grow  accustomed  first 
to  my  madness.  You  are  happy,  eh?  How  mar- 
velous your  eyes!  They  were  beautiful  before 
when  they  crawled  like  round  spiders  through 
my  brain.  But  elusive.  They  fled  from  me, 
my  madness  pursuing  them  into  dark,  empty 
corners. 


[Sixty-nine] 


FANTAZIUS      eM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"But  now  I  have  grown  cleverer.  It  is 
necessary  to  be  superbly  clever  in  order  to  fool 
one's  senses  like  this.  But  take  off  your  clothes, 
little  one.  I  want  to  see  how  clever  I  am.  Has 
my  phantom  a  body,  too,  or  is  it  only  a  face  and 
an  illusion  of  fabric  I  have  created?  Your  vel- 
vet dress,  Rita,  take  it  off.  Ah,  what  a  virginal 
phantom." 

Rita,  trembling  before  the  gleam  of  the 
eyes  that  had  opened  to  her,  listened  anxiously. 
An  ecstasy  drifted  like  a  cloud  over  her  senses. 
He  had  touched  her.  His  hands  had  passed 
over  her  head  as  she  had  dreamed  they  might. 
His  eyes  were  smiling  with  intimacy  at  her 
face.  But  he  had  warned  her  never  to  speak. 
She  must  not  spoil  it  by  speaking.  She  stood 
swaying  before  him. 

"Your  velvet  dress,"  he  repeated. 

Her  hands  reached  dreamily  to  her  body. 
He  would  see  now  how  beautiful  she  was.  The 
men  in  the  caravan  had  called  her  beautiful. 
But  she  had  run  from  them.  That  was  long 
ago.  Now  she  would  show  him  how  the  skin 


[Seventy} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

of  her  body  looked,  how  her  breasts  made  pretty 
curves,  and  how  she  had  washed  herself  in  the 
perfumes  he  had  given  her. 

"Ah,"  murmured  Mallare,  his  eyes  filling 
with  wonder.  "How  incredibly  clever  my  mad- 
ness has  become !  My  little  phantom  undresses. 
Illusion — yet  my  conveniently  stupid  senses  are 
deceived.  But  what  delicious  deception!  See, 
her  throat  and  breasts  are  white.  Her  body  is 
white.  I  may  reach  out  and  touch  the  flesh  of 
her  thighs.  I  am  as  indecent  as  God  for  I  have 
given  her  sex.  But  what  a  plagiarist  I  am !  My 
phantom  is  as  charming  and  naive  as  an  art 
student's  copy.  Still,  she  is  not  a  woman  and 
therefore  not  hateful.  Without  life,  even  this 
may  be  considered  entertaining." 

His  hands  moved  cautiously  over  her  body, 
his  fingers  slipping  experimentally  over  the 
flesh  of  her  buttocks  and  thighs. 

"Interesting,"  he  smiled.  "Like  St. 
Anthony  I  create  obalisques  for  my  seduction. 
Ah,  but  there  is  a  difference.  This  is  mine  .  .  . 


mine!' 


[Seventy-one] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

His  eyes  gleamed  with  a  quick  frenzy  at 
the  naked  figure. 

"Speak.  I  desire  you  to  speak,  little  one. 
If  I  can  believe  in  the  illusion  of  flesh  and  eager 
eyes,  then  I  can  believe  in  the  illusion  of  sound. 
Come  speak.  I  am  at  the  mercy  of  my  madness. 
If  you  speak  to  me,  little  one,  I  will  under- 
stand. Mystupidsensesthatretain  their  earthly 
logic  will  be  ravished  at  the  sound  of  yourvoice. 
But  I  will  chuckle  at  my  cleverness.  Tell  me, 
are  you  mine?  Can  you  say,  'I  am  yours'?  Can 
you  give  yourself  to  me  and  deceive  me  with 
the  beautiful  illusion  of  submission?  Tell  me. 
Speak  to  me." 

Her  eyes  burning  toward  him,  Rita  nodded 
her  head. 

"Yours,"  she  whispered.  "Whatever  you 
say,  I  am." 


'it 

speaks  to  me  and  I  hear.  It  says  'yours.'  I 
become  too  involved.  Or  perhaps  this  is  only 
a  dream.  Of  course,  what  else  can  it  be?  Part 
of  me  has  fallen  asleep  and  is  dreaming.  And 


[Seventy-two] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

because  I  am  mad  I  fancy  myself  awake.  And 
my  senses  obey  me.  Desire  whispers  to  them, 
'Hear  voices.  See  flesh.  Feel  desire,'  and  like 
five  little  awkward  masochists  they  prostrate 
themselves  before  my  madness. 

"But  my  senses  are  of  no  great  interest. 
There  is  this  other — this  mania  of  possession  of 
which  passion,  compounded  of  all  the  senses,  is 
but  an  unimportant  fragment.  I  am  a  man  with 
a  woman  inside  him.  I  possess  the  secret  of  the 
hermaphroditic  Gods.  I  am  complete." 

Rita  kneeled  beside  him  and  his  hands 
stroked  her  black  hair.  Her  face  remained 
raised  in  adoration.  Mallare,  observing  her 
eyes,  nodded  satisfactions  at  them. 

"Who  but  Mallare  could  have  done  this?" 
he  whispered  aloud  to  her.  "Mallare,  infat- 
uated with  himself,  desires  still  a  further  adora- 
tion. So  he  creates  infatuated  phantoms.  I  am 
tired  now.  My  hands  are  tired.  Return,  little 
one,  to  the  couch  of  my  madness  and  sleep  for 
a  time  in  its  shadows." 


[Seventy-three] 


FANTAZIUS     cMALLARE 

Mallare  shut  his  eyes  and  his  hands 
dropped  to  his  side.  Rita  arose  and  smiled  at 
him.  He  had  spoken  strangely,  but  his  words 
were  no  longer  mysteries  since  he  had  caressed 
her.  She  would  lie  now  at  his  feet  as  she  had 
dreamed  of  doing.  She  stretched  herself  out 
on  the  thick  carpet. 

Her  childish  mind  fondled  its  unexpected 
memories.  He  had  looked  at  her  body  and 
spoken  beautiful  words  to  it.  She  remembered 
the  talk  of  the  old  ones  of  the  caravan.  A 
woman  belongs  to  a  man.  This  meant  that  she 
belonged  to  him.  She  had  said,  "Yours." 

Her  face  smiled  itself  to  sleep. 


[Seventy -four] 


[IV] 


ROM  the  Journal  of  Mall  are 
dated  November. 

"I  no  longer  understand 
myself.  My  thoughts  stretch 
themselves  into  baffling  elas- 
ticities. My)  brain  is  a  laby- 
rinth through  which  reason 

searches  in  vain  for  itself.    I  walk  cautiously. 

Yet  I  am  lost. 

"To  think  has  become  like  adding  a  con- 
tinually increasing  column  of  figures.  I  sit  and 
add.  The  figures  will  add  up  into  a  finite  sum 
and  this  sum  will  be  the  understanding  of 
myself.  I  apply  myself  carefully  to  each  figure 


[Stventy-five] 


FANTAZIUS     cMALLARE 

and  say,  'two  and  three  are  five.  Five  and 
seven  are  twelve.'  But  as  I  reach  what  seems 
an  end  I  find  more  figures  waiting  me. 

"I  can  no  longer  add  up  the  fragments  or 
interpret  them.  I  must  be  content  now  to  sit 
and  wait  until  this  part  of  me — my  relation  to 
myself — splinters  into  fragments  and  I  become 
a  dice  box  shaking  with  mysterious  and  invis- 
ible combinations. 

"It  is  the  phantom  Rita  that  is  threatening 
to  drive  me  into  darkness.  Since  I  murdered 
her  in  the  street,  the  hallucination  has  become 
overwhelming.  It  is  with  me  almost  contin- 
ually. When  I  open  my  eyes  from  sleep  I  find 
it  waiting  at  my  bed.  The  hallucination  leaves 
me  when  I  am  outside,  although  at  times  a  trace 
of  it  returns  and  I  seem  more  to  feel  its  pres- 
ence within  me  than  behold  it  with  my  senses. 

"Yes,  I  am  clinging  desperately  to  these 
moments  of  objectivity  which  enable  me  to 
write.  But  even  they  threaten  to  betray  me.  For 
as  I  write  doubts  dance  like  macabre  figures 
among  my  words.  The  very  sentences  seem  to 


[Seventy-six] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

stretch  themselves  into  ridiculous  postures. 
And  I  must  almost  close  my  eyes  and  stumble 
blindly  through  a  storm  of  denouements. 

"I  desired  to  create  for  myself  a  world 
within  which  I  might  love  and  hate — to  be  a 
God  lost  within  his  dream.  Madness  was  neces- 
sary, so  I  embraced  it.  But  my  dream  becomes 
the  product  of  a  Frankenstein.  She — the  hal- 
lucination— is  more  real  to  my  senses  than  am 
I.  And  I  can  no  longer  control  her.  My  senses 
are  unfaithful  to  me.  They  philander  clown- 
ishly  with  this  mirage  of  my  thought  Then 
what  is  there  left?  I.  This  grim  figure  stum- 
bling with  his  head  down  through  a  storm  of 
denouements.  I  persist — an  unwelcome  visitor, 
a  bargain-hunting  tourist  in  Bedlam.  I  remain. 

"But  it  is  a  boast  that  laughs  back  at  me. 
For  I  will  soon  be  a  little  plaything  of  my 
phantom.  Last  night  I  walked  until  I  thought 
I  had  rid  myself.  Her  eyes  alone  lingered.  Her 
hands  moved  like  slow  dancers.  But  I  walked 
and  said  to  myself,  'I  am  tired  of  nonsense.  I 
am  tired  of  this  monotonous  hallucination.  At 


[Seventy-seven] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

least  let  me  be  unfaithful  to  my  dream  since  I 
am  the  God  who  created  it.' 

"I  walked  to  the  street  where  a  month  ago 
she  had  followed  me  under  the  arc  lamp.  It 
was  cold  and  I  grew  tired.  I  came  back  to  sleep. 
'Gone,  she  is  gone,'  I  whispered  to  myself.  The 
room  appeared  empty.  I  was  cautious,  know- 
ing the  ruses  of  this  thing  in  my  mind.  For  my 
madness  and  I  are  no  longer  friends.  My  mad- 
ness hides  for  me  and  plays  tricks. 

"But  she  returned.  I  smiled  at  her.  It  is 
folly  to  grow  angry  with  one's  own  hallucina- 
tions. That  would  be  a  double  madness.  As 
she  stood  before  me,  my  treacherous  senses 
leaped  to  their  sterile  feast.  And  I  smiled. 

"  'My  egoism  has  betrayed  me,'  I  rea- 
soned. 'The  love  that  gleams  from  the  eyes  of 
this  hallucination  is  the  invention  of  my  ego- 
ism. Alas,  I  love  myself  too  much,  for  the 
passion  for  Mallare  with  which  my  madness 
endows  this  illusion  of  a  woman,  threatens  me. 
My  senses  have  already  abandoned  me.  They 
no  longer  obey  the  direction  of  my  will.  And 


[Seventy-eight] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

I  must  stand  like  a  scold,  laughing  and  sneer- 
ing at  them  as  they  yield  themselves  to  her. 
She  is  more  powerful,  therefore,  than  I,  even 
though  her  existence  is  no  more  than  a  shadow 
cast  in  front  of  my  eyes.' 

"I  reasoned  in  this  fashion  and  continued 
to  smile.  It  would  be  best,  perhaps,  to  humor 
her.  Who  knows  but  even  hallucinations  are 
subject  to  wiles  and  coquetry.  A  disturbing 
fancy,  this — one  of  the  distortions  that  insist 
upon  raising  their  mocking  heads  from  the 
midst  of  my  cautious  sentences. 

"She  came  and  knelt  beside  me  and  I 
shook  my  head  at  her.  She  was  dressed  in  a 
gown  I  had  never  seen  before.  It  was  red.  I 
spoke  aloud  and  said — 

"  'See,  how  abominably  clever  I  am.  My 
madness  is  a  jack  of  all  trades.  It  makes  new 
dresses  for  its  phantoms.  It  arranges  their 
coiffures.  It  even  puts  rouge  on  their  cheeks.' " 

"But  as  I  talked  her  hands  reached  out  to 
me.  To  look  into  her  eyes  that  are  always  alive 
with  flames  is  to  succumb.  For  then  I  find 


[Seventy-nine] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

myself  dreaming  my  dream  is  not  a  dream. 
My  senses  clamor  that  I  join  them. 

"  'Forget.  Forget,'  they  whisper,  'come 
with  us.' 

"But  I  chose  to  persist.  I  remain.  To  sit 
in  an  empty  whorehouse  and  masturbate.  .  .  . 
No!  If  this  hallucination  grows  powerful 
enough  to  trick  my  senses  into  clownish  forni- 
cations, let  my  madness  enjoy  them.  Not  I. 
We  are  no  longer  friends,  my  madness  and  I. 

"She  pressed  her  cheek  against  my  leg.  I 
could  feel  her  body  trembling. 

"I  remained  motionless  and  spoke  to  her. 
'Each  night  you  grow  bolder,'  I  said.  'I  am  no 
different  from  other  Gods  in  that  I  seem  to 
have  endowed  you  with  the  instinct  of  pro- 
fanation. But  at  least  Eve  did  not  turn  on 
Jehovah  with  the  whore  tricks  learned  from 
His  apple.  There  is  consolation,  however,  in 
the  fact  that  I,  too,  can  remain  indifferent. 
Indifference  is  the  wisdom  of  God. 

"'You  may  play  with  me.  Yet  I  know 
that  the  burn  of  your  hand  on  my  body  is  an 


[Eighty} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

absurdity,  of  interest  only  to  my  idiot  senses. 
My  arms  reach  out  to  embrace  you.  Your 
breasts  surprise  my  fingers.  Come,  sit  in  my 
lap  if  you  wish.  No,  I  would  rather  enjoy  you 
as  before — standing  before  me  naked.  Take  off 
your  clothes.' 

"While  I  talked  she  clung  to  me.  Her  lips 
passed,  kisses  over  my  face.  I  continued,  how- 
ever, to  observe;  to  remain  a  spectator.  She 
removed  her  clothes,  tearing  them  from  her 
body  and  laughing.  And  standing  before  me 
naked  but  for  her  black  silk  stockings  and  red 
slippers,  she  held  out  her  arms.  But  I  shook 
my  head  and  smiled. 

"'I  am  the  victim  of  an  overwhelming 
desire  to  masturbate,'  I  said  to  her,  'since  I  find 
it  difficult  to  resist  you.  But  if  I  yield  to  the 
mysterious  reality  you  have  assumed  I  will 
become  too  grotesque  for  my  vanity  to  tolerate. 
I  will  remain  aware  while  possessing  you  that 
my  penis  is  beating  a  ludicrous  tattoo  on  a 
sofa  cushion.  I  choose  rather  to  emulate  the 
pride  of  St.  Anthony,  who  shrewdly  refused  to 
play  the  whoremonger  with  shadows.' 


[Eighty-one] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"I  smiled  at  her  and  she  laughed.  She 
crouched  on  her  feet  staring  up  at  me.  Raising 
my  eyes  from  her,  I  saw  Goliath.  He  was  stand- 
ing in  the  curtains  of  his  room,  watching  me 
with  a  curious,  open-mouthed  fury.  I  saw  that 
the  little  monster  was  beginning  to  understand 
that  I  was  mad,  and  this  irritated  me.  There 
was  danger  in  him,  since  even  through  his 
stupid  head  must  have  passed  a  wonder  of  what 
had  happened  to  Rita. 

"I  frowned  at  Goliath  and  his  head  rolled 
f  rightenedly  on  his  heavy  shoulders. 

"Why  do  you  bother  me  when  I  wish 
to  be  alone?'  I  cried.  'Go  to  your  bed  and 
leave  me.7 

"I  stood  up  and  went  for  him.  His  head 
fell  and  he  dragged  himself  back  into  his  room. 
This  was,  perhaps,  the  most  curious  thing  in 
the  incident.  (I  am  ashamed  of  being  seen  with 
this  nude  phantom,'  I  thought.  For  a  moment 
the  mad  idea  came  to  me  that  she  was  visible  to 
Goliath — that  he  was  watching  us — me  and 
this  figment  of  mine.  My  anger  was  shame. 


[Eighty-two} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

My  senses  are  logical  in  their  pretenses.  How 
can  I  stand  out  against  them,  if  they  grow 
cleverer  than  I,  more  persuasive  than  I,  and 
lead  me  finally  into  the  total  madness  of  accept- 
ing them  as  Mallare — the  one  Mallare,  the 
lunatic  who  has  escaped  himself?  I  must  not 
escape. 

"When  I  returned  she  was  still  crouching 
on  the  floor.  I  decided  to  experiment.  Perhaps 
there  was  still  some  lingering  sense  in  me  that 
would  fail  to  succumb  to  this  astonishing 
makebelieve. 

"  'Come  here.  On  the  couch,'  I  ordered  her. 

"She  obeyed.  She  stretched  herself  out 
and  I  sat  beside  her.  The  odor  of  her  body  was 
distinct.  Perfumes  spread  a  clever  gloss  over 
the  woman  smell,  the  bitter  salt  odor  that  stirred 
from  between  her  closed  thighs.  I  smiled,  for 
the  logic  of  this  illusion  grows  entertaining. 
But  I  had  decided  on  experiments.  My  hands 
stroked  her  hair,  feeling  of  its  strands.  My 
fingers  pressed  at  the  skull  beneath  the  warm 
skin  of  her  head.  Then  I  held  her  breasts,  that 


[Eighty-three] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

had  once  seemed  to  me  like  two  little  blind 
faces  raised  in  prayer.  But  imagery  no  longer 
decorates  my  thought.  My  hallucination  is  no 
longer  a  weaver  of  magical  phrases.  But  stark, 
real — its  heart  beating  under  ribs,  its  skin 
glowing  with  perspiration,  its  nipples  standing 
out.  As  I  caressed  her  I  heard  her  say: 

"  'Yours.  Yours.   I  am  your  woman.' 

"Her  thighs  opened  and  her  arms  that  had 
been  held  toward  me  fell  to  her  sides.  My 
hand  slipped  between.  There  was  warm  flesh. 
Yes,  it  was  flesh  to  my  mind.  And  I  sat  for 
moments  allowing  the  illusion  to  stir  a  passion 
in  me.  I  would  throw  myself  on  this  thing, 
hold  it  in  my  arms,  give  myself  to  it.  Where 
was  the  wrong  in  that,  since  it  was  only  myself 
I  ravished — a  phantom  mocking  me  behind 
my  eyes? 

"Goliath  saved  me.  I  saw  him  standing 
once  more  in  the  curtains  of  his  room.  His 
long  arms  were  beating  against  his  sides,  the 
black  fingers  opening  and  shutting  like  frantic 
talons.  He  stood  with  his  head  rolling  as  if  he 


[Eighty-four] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

were  trying  to  stand  erect.    His  eyes  were 
insane. 

"I  sprang  away,  again  pulled  by  the  unmis- 
takable emotion  of  shame.  He  glared  at  me 
for  a  moment,  but  as  my  hand  caught  his  face 
he  toppled  over  and  lay  whining.  I  picked 
him  up  and  threw  him  into  his  bed  and  locked 
the  door  of  his  room. 

"When  I  returned  she  still  lay.  Her  eyes 
were  closed.  She  looked  at  me  and  I  saw  she 
was  weeping. 

"  'Since  you  are  not  to  be  reasoned  out  of 
existence,  since  you  seem  to  resist  what  is  left 
of  my  sanity — there  is  nothing  to  do  but  tol- 
erate you/ 

"I  sat  in  my  chair  and  spoke  to  her. 

"'It  will  end  in  my  loathing  you,'  I  said. 
'I  created  you  in  order  to  possess  you  beyond 
the  realism  of  the  senses.  For  a  time  your  body 
was  like  a  rich  curtain  before  the  door  of 
enchantments  which  I  might  enter  at  will. 

"  'But  there  is  no  longer  a  door.  Your  body 
alone  confronts  me.  In  this  way  I  am  reduced 


[Eighty-five] 


FANTAZIUS      GM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

to  enjoying  my  dream  with  my  senses.  Then  it 
means  only  that  I  have  achieved  nothing  more 
by  my  madness  than  the  privilege  of  mastur- 
bating with  the  aid  of  an  erotic  phantom. 

"  'Alas,  the  reason  of  it  is  clear.  Man's 
fiber  is  fouled  throughout  with  sex.  I  sought 
to  emancipate  myself  from  all  relation  to  life. 
The  delusion  of  my  hopes  is  more  to  be  pitied 
than  the  disorder  of  my  vanity.  For  I  see  now 
that  man  is  a  collection  of  adjectives  loaned  to  a 
phallus.  His  intellect  is  no  more  than  a  divert- 
ing hiatus  between  fornications.  His  soul,  yes, 
his  very  egoism  on  which  he  prides  himself,  is 
a  synthetic  erection. 

"(To  possess!  What  a  delusion!  And  for 
its  sake  I  threw  my  genius  away.  I  stripped  the 
world  from  my  eyes  that  it  might  not  intrude 
upon  the  universe  within  me.  A  paradise  in 
which  I  might  strut  alone.  Possess  myself .  Yes, 
and  here  I  am,  aware  at  last  of  folly.  For  my 
senses  belong  to  life.  And  though  I  buried 
myself  in  a  madness  deeper  than  night,  they 
would  still  cling  to  me.  Though  I  castrated 


[Eighty-sis] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

myself,  they  would  remain — five  invisible  tes- 
ticles. It  is  impossible  to  possess.  Folly  to 
attempt.  As  long  as  the  senses  remain  life  clings 
like  a  dead  whore  to  my  darkness.  Even  my 
madness  that  I  prided  myself  upon  is  a  bab- 
bling witch  astride  a  phallus,  her  lips  bending 
over  it  with  grewsome  hungers. 

"  'There  is  only  one  castration  —  death. 
What  am  I  now?  Mad?  Yes.  And  worse. 
Disillusioned.  I  have  closeted  myself  with  a 
lecherous  animal  and  it  turns  on  me.  That  is 
the  reward  of  the  privacy  I  hungered  after. 

"  'And  you  who  lie  and  weep  on  a  couch 
are  no  longer  the  dream  of  a  God,  but  the  crude 
marionette  created  by  lust  for  its  own  diver- 
sion. I  thought  only  to  go  mad.  But  I  see  I 
have  become  an  idiot.' 

"There  was  no  more  to  say.  Her  weeping 
ended  and  she  vanished.  But  she  will  return. 
In  my  sleep  her  outline  wanders  like  an  amor- 
ous ghost  haunting  the  grave  of  my  senses.  Ah, 
I  must  be  cautious  now,  more  cautious,  always 
cautious.  It  would  be  too  easy  to  yield.  And  if 


[Eighty-seven } 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

I  yielded  and  returned  again  my  defeat  would 
be  unbearable.  I  think  it  is  easier  to  die.  Death 
is  no  more  than  a  premature  torment.  Its  name 
alone  is  a  suffering.  Its  reality  but  a  final 
illusion. 

"But  I  persist.  I  still  remain.  There  is  a 
rhythm  to  things  that  still  seduces  me.  A  gentle 
curiosity  that  gives  the  lie  to  my  bewilderment. 
I  sit,  an  audience,  shedding  crocodile  tears  at 
a  melodrama. 

"Tomorrow  .  .  .  tomorrow.  Who  can 
think  that  word  is  still  himself?  What  differ- 
ence does  it  make  if  I  grow  uncomfortable  and 
swollen  with  illusions?  I  persist.  And  who 
knows  but  tomorrow  will  be  a  door  in  my  laby- 
rinth ...  a  bottom  to  this  pit  into  which  I 
have  fallen?" 


[Eighty-eight'} 


[V] 


ROM  the  Journal  of  Mallare 
dated  December. 

"Her  murder  was  sim- 
ple. We  stood  under  an  arc 
lamp  and  my  hands  killed 
her.  I  remember  her  face 
looking  imploringly  at  me. 
And  when  I  went  away  I  leaned  over  and 
kissed  her  hair.  She  was  dead  in  the  street.  It 
was  simple. 

"Now  I  must  kill  again.  It  is  no  longer 
simple.  I  must  teach  her  to  hate  me.  She  will 
vanish  then.  It  is  clear  in  my  thought.  My 
hands  are  useless  against  her  now.  I  have  held 
them  about  her  neck  and  she  laughs. 


[Eighty-nine] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"All  day  she  runs  around  in  the  room.  At 
night  she  comes  to  my  bed.  Her  hands  wake 
me  up.  She  plays  with  me.  I  lie  thinking  how 
she  may  be  murdered  this  second  time.  She 
has  grown  loathsome.  I  allow  her  to  cover  my 
body  with  kisses  and  listen  to  her  laughter. 
Pollutions  result.  I  am  powerless  against  her 
lips  and  terrible  fingers.  She  devours  me  night 
after  night  like  a  succubus.  I  lie  and  mastur- 
bate with  a  phantom. 

"But  I  will  discover  a  way  to  kill  this 
thing.  I  close  my  eyes  and  lie  powerless  while 
she  repeats  the  refrain  I  once  taught  her. 
'Yours  .  .  .  yours.  I  am  your  woman.' 

"I  have  hurled  her  out  of  bed,  hurled  her 
body  against  the  wall.  She  continues  to  laugh 
like  a  child.  I  think  of  her  as  real.  Goliath 
knows  I  am  mad.  He  watches  me  while  I  strug- 
gle with  this  thing.  He  is  filled  with  terror.  I 
have  told  him  to  go,  but  he  remains. 

"She  sleeps  in  the  bed  that  Rita  used.  I 
have  seen  her  there.  Stood  beside  her  listening 
to  her  breathe.  If  I  die  she  will  pursue  me  in 


[Ninety] 


FAKTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

death.  She  is  more  real  than  I.  I  must  kill  her. 
My  hands  have  never  touched  her  since  the 
night  on  the  couch.  I  have  kept  myself  intact. 
I  still  remain.  She  is  a  virgin.  My  thought  is 
mad.  It  plays  with  the  idea  of  fornication. 
Once,  screams  frightened  her  out  of  my  bed.  I 
lay  unable  to  resist.  My  body  reached  toward 
her.  An  anger  that  was  like  death  blinded  me. 
I  cried  out  and  saved  myself.  My  thought  crept 
back  from  the  madness.  I  called  myself  back. 

"I  can  no  longer  close  my  eyes  to  her.  She 
grimaces  in  the  dark.  And  she  is  at  my  heels  in 
the  street.  I  have  decided  there  is  a  way  to  rid 
myself  of  her. 

"Mallare  .  .  .  Mallareisnomore.  Mad- 
ness jostles  him  off  the  scene.  He  annihilated 
a  world  and  a  new  monster  sprang  up  in  its 
place. 

"My  words  return.  Ah,  tired  warriors 
covered  with  the  grime  of  battle — they  troop 
back  to  my  mind  out  of  the  dark.  Mallare 
returns.  But  what  a  caricature!  See  him  like 
a  fanatic  priest  driving  the  devil  out  of  his 
soul  with  whips. 


[Ntnfty-one] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"This  would  be  a  God,  this  hermaphroditic 
prostitute  who  fondles  himself  at  night.  Mal- 
lare  .  .  .  weep.  Whips  will  not  rid  you  of 
this  monster.  Mallare,  the  plaything. 

"But  there  is  a  way  to  be  rid  of  her.  Hate 
will  darken  the  gleam  of  her  body.  She  will 
vanish.  But  do  I  hate  her?  My  madness  is 
infatuated  since  it  makes  her  so  radiant.  And 
who  am  I  that  I  laugh  at  my  madness?  It  is  I 
who  am  insane.  Not  this  other  Eden  maker 
whose  mania  I  applauded.  I,  Mallare,  tear  at 
my  hair. 

"I  look  in  the  mirror  over  my  bed.  Eyes 
red  and  gleaming  look  back  at  me.  This  is  my 
face,  but  I  am  no  longer  there.  And  whose  are 
these  eyes  looking  back  at  me?  The  eyes  of 
Mallare's  friend,  red  and  gleaming.  His  friend 
who  betrayed  him.  Hair  slanting  over  a  fore- 
head. Mouth  wide  and  thin.  No  longer  mine. 
They  belong  to  the  mirror.  Mallare's  words 
whimper  before  them. 

"Weep  .  .  .  weep,  impotent  one.  The 
feet  of  your  madness  walk  solemnly  over  you. 


[Ninety-two} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

They  kick  gravely  at  a  carcass.  Lie  beneath 
them  and  watch  Mai  la  re  dance  away,  whirl 
away  with  lecherous  shadows  in  his  arms.  But 
she  will  die  too.  I  am  thinking  of  death.  Mal- 
lare  the  egoist  asks  alms  of  death! 

"Windows  break  inside  me.  I  look  out  of 
broken  windows.  I  am  gone  and  away.  Empty 
rooms.  My  hands  feel  walls.  Mallare  asks  pity 
of  darkness.  Pity  him." 


{.Ninety-three} 


[VI] 


HE  sat  looking  out  of  the 
window.  He  had  gone  away 
early  in  the  morning.  It  was 
growing  dark  now.  The 
cold  street  dwindled.  Win- 
dows lighted  up.  People 
that  looked  from  the  dis- 
tance like  black  toys  moved 
through  the  darkening  street. 

She  could  tell  when  he  came  because  his 
walk  was  different.  The  hours  built  pointed 
roofs  to  her  dream.  She  played  behind  happy 
walls  but  her  eyes  remained  outside,  watching 
from  the  window. 

This  was  part  of  a  game — to  hide  away 
and  wait.  To  put  on  her  clothes  carefully  in 


[Ninety- five] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

the  morning;  bright  silks  and  petticoats  and  a 
dress  on  top;  jewels  on  her  fingers;  bracelets 
and  earrings ;  gold  bands  through  her  hair.  To 
make  her  cheeks  red  and  paint  black  lines  in 
her  eyes;  then  paint  her  lips  and  fingers  red — 
these  things  hid  her.  She  must  be  hidden  when 
he  came — concealed  behind  paints  and  clothes 
so  that  when  he  looked  at  her  it  would  be  some- 
one else  he  saw. 

A  tall  man  with  black  hair.  His  face  was 
white.  His  eyes  were  silent  and  hidden.  But 
when  they  looked  at  her  they  screeched  like 
parrots.  They  ruffled  up  and  yellow  points 
came  into  them. 

He  liked  to  walk  up  and  down  pretending 
she  was  nowhere,  pretending  there  was  no  Rita, 
pretending  he  was  looking  for  her.  Then  she 
ran  around  and  one  by  one  she  took  off  the 
things — the  dress,  the  petticoats,  the  silks,  the 
jewels  and  bracelets  and  gold  bands.  Each  one 
she  took  off  was  for  him.  It  was  a  game.  She 
came  out  of  hiding  places.  Each  one  she  took 
off  was  a  secret  she  confessed  to  him. 


[Ninety-six'] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

She  sat  at  the  window  dreaming  of  the 
ways  she  belonged  to  him.  Her  thought  was  a 
pantomime  which  prostrated  itself  before  his 
memory.  She  remembered  sacrifices.  .  .  .  He 
would  lie  cold  in  his  bed.  Then  she  crawled  to 
his  side.  She  dared  not  look  at  his  eyes.  They 
were  above  her  and  kept  themselves  hidden. 
She  vanished  before  the  thought  of  them. 

Then  his  body  grew  warm  under  her 
hands.  Her  lips  made  his  body  tremble.  He 
was  white  and  naked  like  her.  He  was  a  fire 
to  which  she  fed  herself.  The  moment  came 
when  there  was  no  longer  any  Rita.  A  little 
ember  lay  burning  happily  in  his  passion. 

When  he  fell  asleep  she  went  away.  In  her 
own  bed  she  lay  dreaming  words  that  were  like 
hiding  places.  Only  he  could  lure  her  out  of 
them.  After  he  fell  asleep  she  carried  mem- 
ories of  him  into  herself .  .  .  .  He  had  smiled. 
Hisbodyhadshivered.  Hisfingershadclutched 
at  her  face.  He  had  picked  her  up  and  fought 
with  her.  When  he  did  this  it  was  as  if  he  lifted 
her  to  his  eyes  and  she  could  look  at  him — as  if 
the  wind  lifted  the  flames  about. 


[Ninety-seven] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

The  street  was  dark.  But  he  would  come 
soon.  He  only  stayed  away  till  it  grew  dark. 
Now  it  was  his  time  again.  The  street  and  all 
the  lights  would  open  the  door  and  come  into 
the  room.  And  she  would  be  waiting,  hidden 
away.  It  was  exciting  to  wait.  It  was  the 
way  he  kissed  her — by  making  her  wait  and 
pretending  when  he  came  that  there  was  no 
Rita. 

The  night  was  like  a  story  that  frightened. 
As  she  watched  from  the  window  she  remem- 
bered the  caravan  along  the  roads.  Fires  and 
dark  faces  and  red  handkerchiefs.  The  night 
along  the  roads  changed  the  trees  into  birds  that 
flew  away.  The  wagons  went  to  sleep.  Every- 
one slept  but  Rita.  The  horses  had  dreams  and 
whispered  to  themselves. 

Alongthe  roads  where  the  caravan  stopped 
there  would  be  a  fire  at  night  to  watch.  Rita 
sat  alone  looking  at  the  flames.  Dreams  came 
out  of  the  fire  and  walked  away.  Then,  hours 
afterward,  they  came  back  when  the  fire  was 
low.  They  stood  around  the  coals  and  finally 
crawled  into  the  ground.  Darkness  remained. 


[Ninety-eight] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

The  wagons  became  ghosts.  She  grew  sad  and 
wanted  to  go  away  with  the  night  like  the 
dreams  that  crept  back  into  the  dead  fire. 

Now  his  eyes  were  like  the  hiding  places 
she  had  wished.  She  trembled.  He  was  com- 
ing. She  could  see  him  out  of  the  window, 
walking  slowly  in  the  street  below.  She  closed 
her  eyes. 

The  door  opened  and  her  heart  bowed 
itself.  Her  fingers,  stiffened  with  colored  rings, 
pressed  at  her  breasts.  Now  there  was  a  game 
to  play.  He  walked  up  and  down  pretending 
Rita  was  hidden.  He  was  cold  and  far  away. 
His  face  walked  like  a  dead  man  back  and 
forth  in  the  room.  Goliath  shuffled  as  fast  as 
he  could  and  hid  himself  in  the  curtains.  She 
crouched  in  the  chair,  her  knees  drawn  up,  her 
eyes  cringing  with  delight. 

She  could  watch  his  face.  When  he  was 
far  away  she  had  further  to  go  to  reach  him, 
and  each  step  was  like  a  kiss  she  gave  him.  His 
anger,  his  words,  his  cold  face  and  his  hands 


{.Ninety-nine] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

striking  her  were  wild  roads  down  which  she 
ran  toward  a  fire  that  waited. 

He  paid  no  attention  but  walked  up  and 
down  and  his  eyes  ignored  her.  But  he  would 
begin  to  talk  soon.  She  would  undress  for  him. 
One  by  one,  rings,  bands  of  gold,  silks  and  petti- 
coats— each  that  came  off  was  like  a  part  of  her 
already  burning. 

She  stood  up  naked.  Only  she  was  left 
now.  Her  body  caressed  her  with  its  desires. 
She  must  go  on  undressing.  There  was  some- 
thing more  to  give  him.  She  would  remove 
something  of  herself — her  arms,  her  breasts, 
her  white  thighs.  She  gave  these  to  him  with 
her  dresses  and  jewels.  They  were  things  for 
him  to  burn  up. 

He  was  looking  at  her  because  she  had 
crawled  to  his  feet.  This  was  when  he  began  to 
talk  to  her — when  she  placed  her  arms  around 
his  feet  and  bent  her  head  to  the  floor. 

"Yours,"  she  whispered. 

He  was  motionless  and  far  away  and  tall 
above  her.  He  stood  like  the  night.  His  white 


[One  Hundred} 


FAKTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

face  was  the  cold  moon.  She  waited  and  heard 
the  wind  blow  against  the  windows.  She  waited 
for  him  to  grow  warm. 

His  hands  lifted  her  up.  He  held  them 
around  her  neck,  his  fingers  tightening.  She 
opened  her  eyes  and  loved  him.  He  talked  to 
her.  She  listened  and  wished  to  die  in  his  hands, 
if  he  desired  her,  if  it  would  make  his  eyes 
smile  at  her. 

But  his  fingers  loosened  and  he  threw  her 
down.  She  lay  smiling  on  the  floor  as  he  walked 
away.  He  went  on  talking,  louder  and  louder. 
His  voice  was  like  a  sword  swinging.  He  was 
angry.  His  words  were  soft  and  quick. 

She  looked  up  only  when  he  laughed.  He 
was  standing  against  the  red  curtains  laugh- 
ing. His  finger  was  pointing  to  her.  He  stood 
watching  her  with  his  eyes  screeching  like  par- 
rots and  laughing  as  he  pointed. 

Kneeling,  she  covered  her  face  with  her 
hands.  His  laughter  came  nearer.  His  hands 
began  to  strike.  Pain  leaped  to  greet  them. 
Pain,  like  wings,  raised  her  body  to  his  eyes. 


[One  Hundred  One} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

His  hands  were  striking  and  tearing.    They 
played  a  game  with  her  body. 

Candles  lighted  in  her  head.  He  was 
laughing  and  throwing  himself  against  her. 
She  felt  blood  come  out  of  her  and  cover  her 
with  little  flames.  But  he  would  let  her  come 
close  soon.  After  he  had  struck  her  and  become 
like  a  fire  she  would  crawl  close  to  him  and  he 
would  let  her  give  herself,  what  was  left  of 
herself. 

His  hands  knocked  her  down  again  and 
she  lay  without  moving.  He  was  still  laughing 
and  pulling  at  her.  She  kneeled  and  covered 
her  face.  Her  head  kept  nodding  at  him. 

Now  she  would  die.  He  would  devourher. 
Her  body  fell  and  rose  as  if  he  were  swinging 
her  around  his  head.  His  hands  drove  nails 
through  her  breasts.  Her  voice  ran  away  from 
her  and  screamed.  But  she  continued  to  nod 
her  head  and  to  come  toward  him  out  of  the 
hiding  places.  His  blows  were  binding  her 
body  with  red  ropes.  But  soon  she  would  lie 
against  him  and  give  herself  to  his  passion. 


[One  Hundred  Two] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

She  would  feel  his  body  burning  from  the 
blows  he  had  given  her.  She  closed  her  eyes 
and  screamed.  He  grew  larger  and  she  was  no 
longer  able  to  understand  the  pain.  .  .  . 

When  she  awoke  Goliath  was  bending 
over  her.  He  was  whispering  excitedly.  Sun- 
light made  red  shadows  in  the  room. 

"Where  is  he?"  she  asked. 

She  slid  to  the  floor  and  then  stood  up  care- 
fully. Pain  halted  her  and  she  moaned.  But 
her  eyes  continued  to  hunt  the  room. 

"Where  is  he?"  she  asked  again. 

Goliath  watched  her  and  his  head  rolled 
excitedly.  She  straightened  and  dragged  her- 
self to  the  door  of  his  room.  It  was  empty. 

"Mallare,"  she  cried.  Her  hands  beat 
against  her  head,  "Mallare." 

Goliath  remained  watching  her  naked 
figure  stumbling  through  the  rooms  as  she 
called  the  name.  She  returned  to  the  couch 
and  threw  herself  face  down.  She  lay  moaning 
and  tearing  the  cushions  with  her  fingers. 


lOne  Hundred  Three] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

He  had  gone  away.  He  had  beaten  her 
not  because  he  loved.  He  hated  her.  And  he 
had  taken  himself  away  from  her.  She  under- 
stood. He  no  longer  wanted  her.  He  had 
laughed  and  tried  to  kill  her. 

With  a  scream  she  rushed  into  his  bed- 
room and  threw  herself  against  the  unused 
pillows.  Her  arms  struck  at  them.  She  began 
to  talk  aloud  in  the  language  she  knew. 

"Gone  away,  gone  away,"  she  cried.  "I 
am  yours  and;  you  gone  away." 

But  words  were  too  involved.  She  beat  at 
the  pillows  and  screamed.  When  he  came  back 
she  would  kill  him.  While  he  sat  in  his  chair 
writing  she  would  creep  close  and  drive  a 
knife.  That  was  what  would  happen  to  him 
because  he  no  longer  loved  her  and  because  he 
had  beaten  her  to  say  goodbye. 

It  was  day  outside.  When  it  grew  dark 
again  he  would  come  back.  She  would  wait, 
but  not  as  before.  She  was  no  longer  his. 

In  her  room  Rita  bathed  herself  and 
searched  for  her  old  clothes.  She  found  them 


[One  Hundred  Four] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

hidden — the  wide  dress  with  red  and  yellow 
stripes,  the  many  blue  and  scarlet  petticoats 
that  she  had  worn  when  he  brought  her  home 
from  the  caravan;  the  long  black  earrings,  the 
green  and  orange  shawl  for  her  head.  She  put 
these  on.  They  hid  the  vivid  marks  on  her  body. 

Dressed  in  her  gypsy  clothes  she  came  into 
the  room  again.  It  would  be  long  to  wait.  But 
darkness  would  come  and  then  he  would  open 
the  door  again.  She  lay  down  on  the  couch 
and  sighed. 


[One  Hundred 


PVF 

WML 


[VII] 


|ALLARE,  wrapped  in  a 
heavy  overcoat,  his  hands  in 
thick  gloves,  walked  from 
his  door  into  the  street.  The 
cold  straightened  him.  The 
deserted  night  mirrored 
itself  in  a  thin  coating  of 
snow  that  overlay  the  roof- 
tops. 

"They  sleep,"  he  thought.  His  head  bent 
toward  the  wind.  "The  streets  are  empty.  The 
night  is  mine.  I  must  think  of  what  has  hap- 
pened. There  is  something  inexplicable  in 
what  has  happened.  My  hands  fought  with  a 
phantom.  That,  of  course,  is  nonsense. 

"How  do  I  know  my  hands  fought? 
Merely  because  I  remember  them  striking. 


[One  Hundred  Seven] 


FANTAZIUS     cMALLARE 

Yet  that  may  have  been  an  illusion  too!  Then 
why  are  my  hands  tired?  Why  do  my  arms 
ache?  Another  illusion,  of  course.  Logic  is 
independent  of  truth.  Logic  is  the  persuasive 
repetition  of  ideas  by  which  man  hypnotizes 
himself.  I  must  beware  of  logic.  It  will  but 
tie  me  hopelessly  to  hallucination.  I  must 
think  without  evidence.  I  do  not  know  any- 
thing. What  I  see,  hear,  smell,  touch  is  noth- 
ing. I  can  no  longer  summon  my  senses  as  wit- 
nesses. 

"And  is  that  unusual?  I  must  sink  to 
moralizings  in  order  to  understand  myself. 
What  is  reality  but  the  habit  of  illusion.  Man 
sees  the  unexpected  once  and  identifies  it  as 
hallucination.  He  sees  it  twice  and  calls  it  phe- 
nomenon. But  if  he  acquired  the  habit  of  see- 
ing the  unexpected,  he  accepts  it  as  reality. 

"In  the  same  manner  in  which  he  builds 
phantoms  into  furniture,  converts  his  Gods 
into  sciences,  his  myths  into  laws ;  in  that  way 
he  also  reduceshis furniture  into  phantoms.  He 
converts  his  emotions  into  music,  his  nervous 
disorders  into  literature,  his  three  elemental 


[On*  Hundred  Eight] 


FANTAZIUS     cMALLARE 

desires  into  thought.  He  is  continually  hold- 
ing a  mirror  to  nature  and  worshipping  the 
childish  phantoms  within  the  mirror. 

"This  is  the  basis  of  egoism — the  mania 
to  change  realities  into  unreality.  Because 
man  is  the  tool  of  reality.  Of  unreality  he  is 
the  God.  It  is  this  desire  to  dominate  which 
inspires  him  to  avoid  truths  over  which  he  has 
no  sway  and  to  invent  myths.  Gods  and  virtues 
over  which  he  may  set  himself  up  as  creator 
and  policeman.  It  is  this  which  causes  him  to 
cloud  the  simplicities  of  nature  in  a  maze  of 
interpretations.  It  is  by  his  interpretations  that 
he  achieves  the  illusion  of  importance.  Ignored 
by  the  planets,  he  invents  the  myth  of  mathe- 
matics and  reduces  the  universe  to  a  succession 
of  fractions  and  Greek  letters  on  a  blackboard. 

"This,  of  course,  for  man  the  egoist.  The 
more  humorous  spectacle  is  the  one  in  which 
man  finds  himself  awed  by  his  own  lies.  His 
Gods,  his  myths,  his  phantoms  come  home  to 
roost.  He  stands  blinking  in  a  veritable  storm 
of  lies.  His  yesterday's  lies,  his  today's  lies,  his 
tomorrow's  lies — all  his  obsolete  interpreta- 


[O*e  Hundred  Nine] 


FANTAZIUS     cMALLARE 

tions,  his  canonized  interpretations ;  all  his  sys- 
tems, his  philosophies;  all  his  Gods  and  Phan- 
toms— these  riot  and  war  around  him.  Error 
endlessly  assassinates  itself  in  a  futile  effort  to 
escape  its  immortality. 

"And  in  the  midst  of  this  horrendous  con- 
fusion, stands  man — naive  and  powerless.  But 
he  has  his  sanity.  He  blows  it  up  carefully  like 
a  soap  bubble  and  strikes  a  defiant  posture  in 
its  center.  And  against  the  walls  of  his  bubble, 
his  phantoms  storm  in  vain.  Within  his  bubble 
he  proceeds  calmly  to  assert  himself." 

It  was  snowing.  The  night,  white  with 
snow,  stared  like  a  blind  man.  A  phantom 
world  hung  in  the  air.  Houses  and  street  with- 
drew silently.  The  snow  covered  them.  Mal- 
lare  walked  on,  staring  into  the  heavy  weave 
of  flakes. 

"A  great  white  leopard  prowling  silently," 
he  murmured.  "It  snows.  The  moon  has  come 
down  and  walks  beside  me.  The  wind  blows 
and  the  moon  gallops  away  on  a  white  horse. 
A  gentle  annihilation.  The  night  has  fallen 


[One  Hundred  Ten  \ 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 


asleep  and  this  is  a  dream  that  pirouettes  in  its 
head.  The  street  becomes  a  bridal  couch. 

"Ah,  the  snow  is  like  my  madness.  It 
snows,  snows.  I  climb  silently  among  soft 
branches  and  white  leaves.  Delirium  sleeps 
with  a  finger  to  its  pale  lips.  I  must  continue 
to  think.  The  storm  hangs  like  a  forgotten  sor- 
row in  my  heart.  But  my  thought  persists.  It 
crawls  like  a  little  wind  through  the  forgotten 
storm.  It  rides  carefully  from  flake  to  flake. 

"I  overtake  myself.  What  a  quaint  imbe- 
cile I  am.  Or  rather,  was.  In  my  effort  to 
emancipate  myself  from  life,  I  succeeded  only 
in  handing  myself  over  to  my  senses.  And  my 
senses,  I  perceive,  belong  not  to  me  but  to  the 
procreative  principles  of  biology.  They  have 
been  loaned  to  me  by  a  master  chemist.  When 
I  die  my  cherished  soul  will  disintegrate  into 
nothing.  It  will  become  a  useless  thing.  It  will 
unquestionably  go  to  a  Heaven  which  is  as  non- 
existent as  itself.  Heaven  is  the  emptiness  into 
which  souls  vanish.  Very  good.  But  my  senses, 
these  are  immortal.  They  will,  in  some  inex- 


IGne  Hundred  Eleven] 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

plicable  way,  I  am  certain,  continue  their  idiot 
career. 

"I  must  consider  them.  I  have  learned 
one  thing.  They  are  indifferent  to  reality  and 
unreality.  They  contain  life  within  themselves. 
All  that  exists  outside  them  is  extraneous — 
shadows  among  which  they  divert  themselves. 

"The  hallucination  that  overpowered  me 
but  never  seduced  my  intelligence  became  a 
reality  to  them.  She  was  a  shadow  with  which 
my  senses  diverted  themselves.  Then  why  do 
I  look  upon  the  business  as  illogical?  The 
illogical  thing  is  not  that  I  feel  tired  from  strik- 
ing her  who  had  no  tangible  existence,  but  that 
I  should  be  able  to  reason  beyond  the  reach  of 
my  senses.  Yes,  that  I  should  succeed  in  wrest- 
ing them  from  their  prey.  For  the  shadows 
with  which  the  senses  divert  themselves  are 
tyrants  they  may  never  hope  to  abandon.  Man 
is  at  the  mercy  of  his  phantoms.  Behold,  I 
arrive  at  a  conclusion  which  means  I  am  bored 
with  the  subject. 

"I  prefer  the  snow.  But  there  is  time  for 
the  snow.  I  must  establish  premises.  Climb 


[One  Hundred  Twelve} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

out  of  the  abyss  on  a  ladder  of  premises.  What 
did  I  say  about  logic?  Oh,  yes,  the  persuasive 
repetition.  One  flake  remains  invisible.  A 
thousand  flakes  are  of  no  account.  It  is  only 
when  the  flakes  repeat  themselves  too  endlessly 
for  my  eye  to  distinguish  that  I  finally  ignore 
them  and  walk  contentedly  in  a  storm.  Thus 
with  logic.  When  I  have  surrounded  myself 
with  an  infinity  of  assurances,  my  error  van- 
ishes in  the  constant  repetition  of  itself.  And 
I  am  reassured.  And  sane. 

"Yet  I  must  think  simply.  The  snow 
seduces  me  into  fellow  labyrinths.  I've 
destroyed  her.  My  senses  were  in  love  with 
her.  They  responded  to  her  kisses.  She  was  a 
Thought  able  to  ravish  my  body.  This  is  what 
the  pathologists  would  identify  as  a  triumph 
of  the  psychic  sex  center.  What  charming  pala- 
verers — the  pathologists!  Man  crawls  in  a 
circle  around  himself  and  fancies  himself  an 
invader — a  pathologist. 

"A  matter  of  no  interest.  What  I  have 
done,  as  the  Christian  Scientists  ably  put  it,  is 


[One  Hundred  Thirteen] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

to  rid  myself  of  this  Thought.  But  why  was  it 
necessary  to  strike  at  it  with  my  hands,  to  tear 
it  with  my  fingers?  This  worries  me.  But  did 
I  do  these  things?  I  must  convince  myself  that 
I  didn't.  I  remember  sinking  my  hands  into 
her  body,  pulling  at  her  flesh.  I  remember 
blows  given.  She  screamed.  I  struck  her  and 
flung  her  down.  These  things  I  recall. 

"But  they  do  not  interfere  with  my  con- 
victions. For  of  what  are  they  proof?  The 
blows  I  gave  were  no  more  than  a  shrewd 
make-believe.  To  my  senses  she  was  real,  and 
it  was  necessary  therefore  to  destroy  her  realist- 
ically. It  was  easy  for  my  mind  to  ignore  this 
Thought.  I  was  never  its  victim.  I  merely 
created  it.  My  senses  that  belong  to  life  and 
not  to  me,  however,  became  victimized. 

"I  do  not  recall  myself  as  a  spectator  of 
the  struggle.  I  remember  it  now  as  I  might 
remember  participating  in  an  honest  fight.  A 
very  clever  ruse.  It  is  evident  I  loaned  myself. 
I  surrendered  adroitly  to  my  idiotic  senses. 
Therefore  for  that  hour  I  was  completely  mad. 


[One  Hundred  Fourteen} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

What  happened  in  the  room?  Ah,  what  a 
grotesque  memory  it  makes.  Mallare  knock- 
ing his  fists  against  the  air.  Mallare  throwing 
himself  around  like  an  epileptic.  Sinking  his 
fingers  into  nothing — a  shadow  boxer  pummel- 
ling frenziedly  at  space.  That  was  madness. 

"But  it  served  its  purpose.  For  I've 
destroyed  her.  Rita,  Rita  is  gone.  Yet  there's 
a  curious  twist  in  that.  I  am  lacking  one 
memory.  One  very  important  memory  hides 
from  me.  I  calculate  its  time  and  place,  but, 
like  a  recalcitrant  comet,  it  fails  to  enter  the 
appointed  void.  Alas,  I  no  longer  remember 
killing  her  in  the  street.  r 

"But  I  am  certain  I  did.  Why,  certain? 
Because  my  logic  establishes  the  fact.  Still,  I 
would  feel  better  about  something,  if  my  mem- 
ory were  more  docile.  But  what  is  memory? 
The  soul  of  dead  illusion.  Since  it  withholds 
itself,  I  will  create  a  memory. 

"There  was  a  lamp  shining  over  my  head. 
I  was  walking.  And  then  I  stood  still.  Oh,  yes, 
shadows.  I  grew  eloquent  with  shadows.  And 


[One  Hundred  Fifteen] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

she  appeared  in  the  midst  of  this  eloquence. 
My  hands  choked  her.  She  had  followed  me 
into  the  street  and  I  choked  her.  But  I  do  not 
remember  this.  At  least,  the  thing  grows  elu- 
sive and  unsatisfactory.  Why?  Ah,  the  snow 
covers  me.  I  will  cover  my  confusion  with  a 
sigh  like  the  snow. 

"No,  I  see  the  thing  now.  Was  she  ever 
real?  There  were  gypsy  wagons  and  an  old 
man.  A  camp  fire  and  this  girl  with  the  green 
and  orange  shawl.  Yes,  these  were  realities. 
But  how  do  I  know?  Hm,  I  place  my  finger 
on  the  sore  spot.  There  is  a  point  where  reality 
and  unreality  meet.  And  this  point  has  van- 
ished from  my  mind.  I  pursue  it.  A  matter  of 
remarkable  importance.  It  evades  me ;  there- 
fore I  will  arbitrarily  locate  it.  The  point 
between  reality  and  unreality  is  the  arc  lamp 
in  the  street.  Up  to  that  point  Rita  was  real.  I 
killed  her  at  that  point  and  she  became  unreal. 
This  statement  cures  me.  Nevertheless,  my 
sanity  is  a  myth.  I  have  invented  it,  by  arbi- 
trarily identifying  the  moment  of  its  departure. 
But  it  is  better  that  way  than  to  blunder  on 


[One  Hundred  Sixteen] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

without  knowing  how  mad  I  am  or  whether  I 
am  mad  at  all,  or  whether  I  ever  have  been 
mad.  A  lie  believed  in  is  an  antidote  for 
confusion. 

"It  doesn't  matter.  Excellent  logic.  She 
is  destroyed.  And  I  am  none  the  worse,  except 
for  a  disillusion  more — and  an  uncertainty. 
My  uncertainty  is  removed  by  logic,  or  at  least 
concealed  by  it.  And  I  am  sane.  I  return  to 
life — another  Napoleon  walking  backwards. 
My  experiments  have  led  me  around  a  circle. 
I  meet  myself  where  I  started,  but  naked  of 
hopes. 

"It  snows  and  I  am  amiable.  Something 
has  happened.  My  hatred,  where  is  that?  This 
street  is  pleasant.  The  light  of  the  snow  cheers 
me.  I  am,  in  fact,  buoyant.  Ah,  I  understand. 
A  balloon  come  down  to  earth  and  vain  once 
more  of  its  buoyancy — its  ability  to  bob  along 
the  pavement. 

"It  is  curious.  I  delude  myself  that  I  am 
thinking.  But  my  alleged  thoughts  do  not 
further  my  ideas.  They  merely  convert  them 


[One  Hundred  Seventeen] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

into  little  pictures  easy  for  me  to  understand 
and  diverting  to  look  at. 

"Still,  if  I  am  happy  .  .  .  but  how  does 
one  know  one  is  happy?  I  suspect  my  happi- 
ness. It  is  a  clown's  suit  in  which  my  mourning 
disguises  itself.  Mallare  has  fallen  out  of  his 
black  heaven.  And  he  picks  himself  up  like  a 
good  burgher.  He  grunts  and  chuckles  and 
looks  at  the  skies,  alas,  without  curiosity.  Luci- 
fer, fallen,  finds  diversion  as  a  janitor  in  red 
tights.  Ergo,  I  have  proved  something.  I  am 
in  Hell  and  with  Lucifer  I  know  its  secret — 
happiness. 

"Where  is  Mallare  who  fancied  himself  a 
madman?  Who  sought  to  climb  over  his  senses 
and  found  himself  impaled  by  a  tower  of  Babel? 
Where  are  his  angers,  his  disgusts  that  were  the 
noble  shadows  thrown  by  his  egoism  to  blot  out 
a  world?  Ballad  of  rhetorical  questions.  My 
vanity  preens  itself  with  reminiscenses.  I  smile. 
I  am  depressed  and  content.  Answers  whisper. 
Mallare  is  on  his  feet.  His  experiments  are 
ended.  His  mania  to  possess  himself  is  a  snow 


[One  Hundred  Eighteen] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

that  falls  forgottea  in  his  past.  Vale,  the  luna- 
tic. Vale,  the  man  in  the  moon.  Ave,  Mallare. 

"It  snows.  I  walk.  I  think.  I  smile.  And 
this  too  for  a  time  is  a  diversion — that  people 
no  longer  distract  me.  I  carelessly  restore  the 
world.  Let  there  be  people,  I  say.  And,  alas, 
there  are.  I  abdicate.  I  hand  my  Godhood 
back  to  the  race. 

"Morning  begins  like  another  snow  in  the 
distance.  Ah,  here  comes  one  tired-eyed  out  of 
a  house.  It  is  astounding  to  think  that  he  is 
human  like  myself.  He  and  I  are  actors  in  the 
same  play,  yet  ignorant  of  each  other's  lines. 
But  I  may  guess  at  his  part.  He  is  frightened. 
He  looks  furtively  toward  me.  And  he  walks 
rather  lamely.  Aha,  a  fornicator!  He  has  left 
a  warm  bed,  illegally  occupied  for  the  night. 
A  woman  in  a  rumpled  night  dress  moaned 
under  him.  The  plot  is  simple.  How  pleasing 
it  was  for  a  moment.  She  came  so  close.  She 
was  like  an  incredibly  intimate  secret.  He 
gasped  physiological  instructions.  And — finis ! 
The  captains  and  the  kings  depart.  The  reces- 


[One  Hundred  Nineteen] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

sional  of  the  douche!   Do  you  love  me  yet,  do 
you  love  me  yet? 

"And  now  he  walks  in  the  cold  street.  He 
must  hurry  away.  There  are  complications, 
but  they  make  a  minor  drama.  Off  stage  busi- 
ness. He  is  aware  of  contrasts.  A  moment 
ago — her  arms,  her  gasps.  A  moment  ago 
warmth,  intimacy.  And  now,  the  snow,  the 
cold,  and  life.  Memory  like  fool's  gold  jingles 
in  his  pocket.  Life  is  real,  life  is  earnest.  He 
regrets  his  orgasms.  They  will  interfere  with 
business. 

"The  male  rampant!  What  a  sinister 
comedian!  The  mythical  despoiler.  Hm,  his 
head  bows  down.  The  snow  disturbs  him.  Sad, 
weary,  remorseful,  he  drags  himself  home.  He 
has  lessened  his  virility  and  it  worries  him. 
There  is  a  plot  in  this.  Some  day  I  will  write 
it  out — a  love  story  of  the  sexes.  Poor,  weary 
one,  he  has  enriched  Delilah. 

"Ah,  I  am  amused.  It  will  be  pleasant 
to  observe  people  once  more.  Sanity  has  its 


[One  Hundred  Twenty] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

rewards.    Its  laughter  is  a  charming  hint  of 
madness  that  one  may  enjoy  harmlessly. 

"What  a  lecherous  spectacle  a  row  of  dark 
houses  is!  Bedrooms  filled  with  bodies — 
incredible  nudities.  Bed  springs  creaking.  The 
hour  of  asterisks.  Window  blinds  down.  Doors 
locked.  Lights  out.  The  city  lingers  in  the 
snow  like  a  feeble  burlesque.  Houses  and 
shops  and  street  car  tracks  gesture  reprovingly. 
Civilization  bows  its  head  in  the  night  like  an 
abandoned  bride.  Man,  like  an  ape  hunting 
fleas,  preoccupies  himself  again  with  his  nerve 
centers. 

"Darkened  houses,  silence — Rabelais  and 
Boccacio  debate  the  immaculate  conception. 
Eros,  patron  saint  of  the  laundryman,  conducts 
ancient  rituals. 

"Ah,  these  indefatigable  and  unctuous 
fornicators,  rolling  their  eyes  piously  between 
orgasms ;  embroidering  noble  mottoes  on  their 
pleasure  towels !  [These  prim  exquisites,  care- 
fully and  with  raised  eyebrows,  folding  their 
toilet  paper  into  proper  squares !]  Who  can  be 


[One  Hundred  Twenty-one] 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

angry  with  them?  God  drove  them  out  of 
Paradise — punishment  enough.  They  revenge 
themselves  with  a  monotonous  enthusiasm.  Ah, 
these  fellatian  moralists!  It  is  folly  to  take 
their  hypocricies  to  heart.  The  plot  is  too  deli- 
cious for  tears.  These  two-fisted  citizens,  these 
purity  braggarts  masturbating  with  one  finger 
unemployed  and  pointing  scornfully  at  their 
neighbors ! 

"Charming  street.  It  offers  consolations, 
simple  ones,  to  be  sure.  But  nevertheless,  con- 
solations. My  madness  was  not  as  mad  as  this 
dark  street.  This  is  a  prettier  witches'  night 
than  the  one  I  aspired  to.  I  am  amused  and 
my  amusement  is  an  insult  that  inspires  me.  If 
one  cannot  become  God,  one  can  at  least  sit  and 
sneer  happily  at  the  handiwork  of  his  rival. 

"The  dawn  comes  into  my  head.  Poor 
Mallare,  who  must  readjust  his  vocabulary  to 
coherences.  The  night  flies  away.  How  simple 
this  little  scene  becomes.  Mysteries  vanish. 
Doors  open.  Window  blinds  raise  themselves. 
And  now  people  stick  their  heads  out  into  the 


{One  Hundred  Twenty -two] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

cold.    Wagons,  trucks,  crowds  begin.    They 
hurry  to  work,  older  by  a  night. 

"My  sanity  laughs  at  them,  but  sadly.  I 
detect  an  obligate  to  my  mirth.  The  comedy 
is  poignant  only  because  I  am  a  part  of  it. 
These  hurrying  ones  with  their  tired  faces  and 
eager  shoulders  are  my  brothers  and  sisters 
sharing  with  me  the  spectacle  they  make.  They 
are  a  disillusioning  mirror  in  which  I  see 
myself  a  million  times.  Yes,  they  look  back  at 
me,  and  their  weariness,  their  hopelessness  sad- 
dens me.  Man  sees  himself  by  gazing  into  the 
world — and  is  overcome.  It  is  only  a  lunatic 
who  can  keep  merry  in  the  face  of  so  monstrous 
an  image. 

"My  happiness  is  without  merriment.  I 
return  quickly.  I  have  already  the  habit  of 
coherence.  In  a  few  hours  I  will  go  back  again 
and  begin  with  canvas  and  paint  once  more. 
My  madness  is  a  lost  argument.  I  am  a  little 
tired.  But,  alas,  he  who  has  danced  and  slept 
with  Medusa  goes  home  weary. 


[One  Hundred  Twenty-three} 


FANTAZIUS     cMALLARE 

"It  will  take  time  before  my  amusement 
ripens  into  rages.  And  without  rages  work  is 
impossible.  I  will  wait.  Now  I  am  too  indif- 
ferent for  anything  but  happiness.  It  is  easy 
to  walk  and  forget  one's  self  and  one's  senses. 
It  will  come  back.  Mallare  will  return  and 
expend  himself  naively  in  decorations  once 
more. 

"When  I  am  strong  again  I  will  hunt  up  a 
woman.  Poor  Rita,  whom  I  have  murdered 
twice,  illustrating  the  paradox  of  possession. 
Man,  the  slave  of  his  senses,  possesses  only 
what  his  five  masters  offer  him  as  gifts. 

"I  will  find  a  clever  one  this  time  whom 
jests  do  not  frighten.  One  who  does  not  burn 
incense  before  her  vagina  and  cover  it  with  an 
altar  piece.  How  unctuously  women  embrace 
ideas  which  increase  the  value  and  importance 
of  their  urinal  ducts!  Modesty,  morality,  pru- 
rience, piety,  are  the  effulgent  underwear 
behind  which  they  increase  the  mystery  and 
charm  of  the  mons  veneris.  Alas,  they  are  the 
artists  of  sex  and  not  men.  Man  has  even 


[One  Hundred  Twenty-four] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

thrown  away  the  seductive  cod-piece.  The 
origins  of  ideas  are  varied  and  multiple.  But 
whatever  their  origins,  it  is  women  who  utilize 
them.  What  an  incredible  sex!  Vaginomaniacs. 

"I  will  hunt  up  a  vulgar  woman,  one  who 
does  not  piously  regard  her  vulva  as  an  orifice 
to  be  approached  with  Gregorian  chants.  I 
must  be  careful  to  avoid  those  veteran  mastur- 
bators  marching  heroically  under  the  gon- 
falons of  virginity.  It  is  a  difficult  business, 
finding  a  woman.  A  modest  one  will  offend 
my  intellect.  A  shameless  one  will  harass  my 
virility.  A  stupid  one  will  be  unable  to  appre- 
ciate my  largess.  An  intelligent  one  will  pene- 
trate my  impotency. 

"But  why  women?  The  devil  take  them 
all.  I  am  almost  tired  of  the  disillusions  they 
have  to  offer.  The  homely  ones  go  away  grate- 
ful for  something  they  never  received.  The 
pretty  ones  go  away  chuckling  secretly  over 
something  they  never  gave.  It  is  a  confused 
and  unintelligible  waste  of  time.  It  will  be 
enough  to  paint,  to  talk,  to  sip  tea,  to  wander 


lOne  Hundred  Twenty-five} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

about  proselyting  in  behalf  of  improvised 
Gods.  I  will  divert  myself,  making  love  to 
women  out  of  range  of  their  bedrooms.  I  will 
engage  them  conversationally  and  ravish  them 
with  erect  and  quivering  adjectives.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  undress  a  woman  to  know  her.  She 
reveals  herself  almost  as  piquantly  in  moods. 
I  will  be  the  father  of  moods.  And,  as  a  recrea- 
tion, I  will  sit  and  watch  the  days  in  their 
unchanging  flight.  I  bristle  with  rhetoric.  It 
is  a  symptom  of  sanity.  I  am  grateful  for  this 
ability  to  bore  myself." 

It  was  morning.  Mallare  paused  against 
a  window.  He  stood,  staring  into  the  life  of 
the  street.  His  eyes  were  drawn  and  the  cor- 
ners of  his  wide,  thin  mouth  smiled  feebly. 

Snow  was  falling.  The  morning  dissolved 
itself.  Traffic  drifted  busily  and  without  sound 
behind  the  snow — an  excited  pantomime  that 
filled  the  air  with  misplaced,  ventriloquial 
whispers. 

Mallare  remained  smiling  into  the  gentle 
storm.  Snow  covered  his  head  and  shoulder. 


\One  Hundred  Twenty-six] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"The  snow  falls,"  he  thought  tiredly.  "It 
snows,  snows.  White  flakes  lose  themselves  and 
are  grateful  for  the  earth.  An  invisible  ending 
that  flatters  them.  Well,  I  have  walked  all 
night  and  rid  myself  of  wisdoms.  I  am  hungry. 
It's  possible  I  haven't  eaten  for  months.  In 
order  to  eat,  however,  I  need  money." 

He  slipped  one  of  the  gloves  from  his  hand 
and  felt  in  his  pocket.  A  satisfied  smile  came 
to  his  eyes. 

"Excellent,"  he  thought.  "Or  I  would 
have  celebrated  my  sanity  by  starving  to  death." 

Withdrawing  his  hand  from  his  pocket,  he 
found  himself  regarding  it.  It  grinned  back  at 
him  like  a  stranger.  It  was  red. 

"Blood,"  he  murmured.  His  eyes  glanced 
quickly  around  and  he  replaced  the  glove.  He 
continued  to  walk. 

"Blood,"  he  repeated  to  himself.  The 
word  made  an  ending  in  his  thought.  He 
walked  slowly  staring  at  it.  His  silence  lifted. 
A  voice  crept  into  him  and  began  to  speak 
from  a  distance. 


[One  Hundred  Twenty-seven} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"Careful,"  it  murmured.  "Be  cautious. 
Remember  you  were  mad.  You  had  almost 
forgotten.  There  is  something  to  think  about, 
now.  You  will  walk  slowly  and  think.  It's 
not  as  easy  as  it  seemed.  Be  careful. 

"Your  fists  fought  with  a  phantom.  Blows, 
wild  blows.  The  grotesque  memory — the  mad- 
man pummelling  the  air.  That  was  you.  And 
your  hands  are  bruised.  They've  been  bleed- 
ing. Her  breasts  and  head  were  something 
else.  Your  fists  struck  mercilessly  at  chairs  and 
walls.  When  your  hands  are  washed  you  will 
find  bruises  over  them  that  have  been  bleeding." 

He  walked  on  nodding  his  head  slowly. 
Later  he  stopped.  The  snow  was  piling  itself 
over  the  grass  of  a  small  park.  The  swollen 
shapes  of  trees  and  benches  rested  in  the  storm. 

Mallare  sat  down  on  a  bench  and  removed 
his  gloves.  Both  hands  were  red.  Smiling 
tiredly,  he  began  to  rub  them  with  the  snow. 
His  eyes  waited  as  the  color  dissolved.  His 
hands  were  clean.  He  looked  at  them  and 
nodded. 


[One  Hundred  Twenty-eight] 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"There  are  no  bruises,"  he  murmured. 
"The  blood  came  from  something  else." 

He  paused  and  watched  the  snow. 

"It  is  curious,"  he  whispered  aloud.  "Then 
I  am  still  mad.  Careful  .  .  .  mad.  For  there 
was  blood  .  .  .  and  not  mine.  So  it  would  seem 
I  have  been  seducing  myself  with  optimisms.  A 
true  madman.  Yes,  a  lunatic  mumbling  excit- 
edly to  himself  in  the  snow  all  night,  saying: 

"Sane.   Mallare  is  quite  sane." 
He  laughed  softly. 

"Oh,  yes.  I'm  too  clever  for  you,  Mallare. 
Very  much  too  clever.  You  present  a  pair  of 
red  hands  to  me.  I  wash  them  carefully  in 
the  snow.  They  become  white.  Interesting 
phenomena." 

Hq  chuckled  softly  and  stared  at  the  snow 
and  swollen  trees. 

"The  old  circle  again,"  he  murmured. 
"And  I  begin  the  absorbing  hide  and  go  seek 
with  my  senses.  Who  am  I  and  where  do  I 
end?  And  who  are  they  and  where  do  they 


[One  Hundred  Twenty-nine} 


FANTAZIUS      eM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

begin?  Let  us  study  the  phenomenon  of  red 
hands.  Primo — how  do  I  know  there  was 
blood?  My  eyes  said,  'blood.'  And  the  snow 
is  red.  But  that  is  only  because  my  eyes,  infat- 
uated with  an  idea,  repeat  the  information. 

"But  I,  Mallare,  who  am  no  madman's 
pawn,  no  lickspittle  secretary  to  my  senses,  I 
say,  'no  blood.'  I  am  the  Pope.  I  excommuni- 
cate the  phenomenon. 

"Ah,  if  there  is  blood,  I  fought  with  one 
who  could  bleed.  And  even  my  cleverness 
could  not  supply  arteries  in  a  phantom.  Ergo, 
there  is  no  blood.  I  am  still  mad.  I  see  that 
which  is  not.  But  it  is  nothing  to  be  disturbed 
about.  In  fact,  it  is  a  diversion." 

The  snow  slowly  covered  the  figure  of 
Mallare.  His  drawn  eyes  balanced  themselves 
amid  the  flakes. 

"It  snows,  snows,"  he  murmured  after  a 
pause.  "And  I  remember  something.  What  is 
it  I  think!  Rita  .  .  .  Yes,  there  would  be 
blood  if  Rita  were  .  .  .  Hm,  the  murdered 


[One  Hundred  Thirty] 


FANTAZIUS      eM  A  L  L  A  R  E 


one.   There  was  something  I  didn't  remember 
while  I  walked. 

"I  can't.  Not  that  way.  Careful,  Mallare. 
Be  careful.  There  are  thoughts  impossible  to 
think.  Yes,  impossible." 

,        Again  silence  filled  him.   His  drawn  eyes 
widened. 

"Mallare,"  he  whispered,  "you  are  a  mad- 
man. I  know.  This  chokes.  Yes.  It  was  I — I, 
Mallare.  It  is  I  who  have  been  mad.  I  have 
been  mad  myself .  Not  you.  No,  not  you!  But 
the  God — the  Strange  Pose.  I  can't.  An  impos- 
sible denouement.  My  head  breaks.  Her 
blood  .  .  .  Rita." 

He  stared  open  mouthed  at  a  question  that 
circled  toward  him  out  of  the  snow.  Words 
babbled  in  his  head.  He  shook  himself  away 
from  them  and  stared. 

"She  was  alive!"  he  cried  aloud.  "My 
phantom  lived.  It  was  I  who  was  the  phantom. 
And  she — alive!" 


[One  Hundred  Thirty-one] 


FANTAZIUS     cMALLARE 


His  face  whitened,  his  eyes  remained  inan- 
imate and  gleaming  with  terror.  Then  the 
figure  of  Mallare  fell  forward  and  lay  curved 
in  the  snow. 


[One  Hundred  Thirty-two} 


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[VIII] 


ROM  the  Journal  of  Mallare 
dated  January. 

"I  am  the  one  who  con- 
templates. I  am  the  Know- 
ing One.  There  is  nothing  I 
do  not  know.  It  is  amazing 
to  be  Mallare.  I  have  tri- 
umphed over  five  worlds.  I 
look  down  upon  a  rabble  of  Mallares.  There 
are  five  Mallares — five  sullen  looking  mad- 
men. One  of  them  sits  and  listens  to  voices. 
Another  of  them  wanders  about,  staring  with 
sad  eyes  at  intolerable  visions.  Another  of 
them  lies  on  his  back,  babbling  excitedly  with 
the  darkness.  Another  of  them  eats  and  sleeps 


[One  Hundred  Thirty-three} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

like  a  prosperous  grocer.  And  there  is  a  fifth 
Mallare  who  weeps.  A  baffling  rogue  who 
puts  his  arms  around  me  and  blubbers  on  my 
shoulder  like  a  lodge  brother.  He  says  noth- 
ing, and  of  them  all  I  dislike  him  the  most. 

"His  silence  is  mysterious.  His  tears  are 
uncomfortable.  A  distressing  ass,  weeping, 
blubbering.  He  implores  me.  Aha,  I  have  it. 
I  know  his  secret.  He  is  memory — a  memory 
of  myself  following  me  around  like  a  heart- 
broken mother  a  wayward  son. 

Five  Mallares,  five  sinister  comedians  to 
entertain  me.  And  I,  what  can  I  call  myself — 
pure  reason?  No,  a  disgusting  title.  Rather, 
Unreason,  since  I  am  after  all  the  Indifferent 
One.  But  all  this  is  a  quibble  inspired  by  mod- 
esty. I  am  God.  I  am  that  which  men  have 
worshipped — the  aloof  one,  the  pitiless  and 
amused  one. 

"The  five  tribes  of  Mallare  rage  and  curse 
beneath  me,  fill  the  air  with  profanations,  weep 
and  gibber  in  the  night.  But  I  sit  inviolate  and 
wait  for  them — even  for  that  blubbering  one 


[One  Hundred  Thirty-four} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

whose  tongue  is  thick  with  tears  and  whose 
idiot  eyes  implore  me — and  they  return.  They 
raise  their  faces  to  me,  their  God,  and  fall  pros- 
trate before  my  smile. 

"Yes,  it  is  the  weeping  one  who  causes  me 
the  most  trouble.  A  reluctant  worshipper  who 
annoys  me.  He  clings  like  another  phantom. 
A  meddlesome  imbecile  who  keeps  buttonhol- 
ing me  and  pouring  out  tales  of  woe.  And  who 
keeps  my  name  on  his  lips.  I  can  see  it  moving 
on  his  lips.  But  he  is  dumb.  I  have  his  secret 
though.  This  dumb  one  came  to  me  in  the 
snow.  I  was  faint.  Hunger  had  thrown  me  to 
the  ground.  When  I  stood  up  he  was  beside 
me.  His  lips  moved  excitedly  but  they  made 
no  sound.  And  we  walked  home  together. 

"  'Who  is  this  pathetic  intruder?'  I  thought. 
'He  walks  beside  me  gesturing  with  his  lips 
and  weeping,  weeping.  He  falls  on  my  neck 
and  embraces  me.  His  eyes  roll  with  panic. 
What  new  variant  of  madness  is  this?' 

"It  is  curious  that  of  all  the  Mallares  he 
alone  is  speechless.  The  others  keep  up  their 
incessent  babbling  and  screaming — true  citi- 


[One  Hundred  Thirty-five] 


FANTAZIUS      cMALLARE 

zens  of  Bedlam.  But  this  dumb  one  who 
attached  himself  to  me  in  the  snow,  even  his 
lips  have  stopped  moving  now,  except  to  form 
my  name  slowly  as  he  blubbers  on  my  shoulder. 

"I  am  kind  to  him  and  forgiving.  I  smile. 
I  even  coax  him  to  speak,  to  move  his  lips  once 
more.  In  the  snow  when  he  followed  me  home 
I  was  able  to  detect  words  his  silence  spoke. 

"'Blood  on  your  hands,'  he  repeated. 
Think,  think,  Mallare.' 

"I  humored  him  and  looked  at  my  hands. 
They  were  clean.  And  I  answered  him  sooth- 
ingly. 

"'You  are  an  interesting  quirk,'  I  said. 
'My  senses  that  fancy  they  have  killed  a  woman 
have  given  birth  to  an  illusion  of  guilt.  And 
you  are  that  illusion.  My  madness  dresses  itself 
in  logic  like  a  fishwife  hanging  rhinestones  in 
her  hair. 

"  'Be  calm,'  I  said,  'Mallare  has  slain  only 
a  phantom,  and  the  murder  of  illusions  is  a 
highly  respectable  privilege  whose  exercise  is 
rewarded  on  earth  as  well  as  in  heaven.' 


[One  Hundred  Thirty-six} 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"But  this  creature  was  not  to  be  diverted 
from  himself. 

"  'He  is  another  one  of  them/  I  thought. 
'He  walks  and  implores  and  wrings  his  hand 
and  babbles,  'blood,  blood  that  was  real.'  And 
there  is  nothing  to  be!  done  with  him.  Another 
pathologic  symptom  asks  the  hospitality  of 
Mallare,  and  I  must  make  the  proper  pretense 
of  graciousness  and  cordiality. 

"  'But  first  I  must  identify  my  guest.  Take 
his  measure  out  of  the  corner  of  my  eye  and 
understand  him.  Very  well,  I  have  been  the 
victim  of  a  hallucination  which  my  senses 
accepted  as  real.  And  which  I  was  able  to 
murder  only  by  pretending  I  too  believed  it 
real.  Therefore,  having  committed  this  illu- 
sory crime,  there  results  this  illusory  sense  of 
guilt.' 

"And  thus  we  walked  home,  this  dumb 
one  and  I,  his  absurd  grief  confusing  me.  I 
will  confess.  My  name  on  his  lips  frightened 
me  at  first.  As  it  sometimes  does  now.  For  he 
has  become  more  than  an  illusion  of  guilt.  He 


[One  Hundred  Thirty-seven] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

is,  this  sly  fellow,  a  memory,  inarticulate  and 
envious.  He  envies  me  because  I  am  clever 
enough  to  laugh  at  my  madness.  However,  I 
will  consider  him  later,  in  his  various  guises, 
for  of  all  the  Mallares,  dumb  though  he  is  and 
ludicrous  with  inane  tears,  he  interests  me  the 
most. 

"We  walked  home  and  I  finally  fell  to 
belaboring  him.  A  pest,  a  mendicant,  a  croak- 
ing idiot — I  cursed  him  out  roundly  and 
refused  him  further  attention.  This  is  the 
wisest  course  sometimes.  It  is  dangerous  to 
humor  too  carelessly  these  sprawling  Mallares. 
They  are  slyly  at  war  with  my  omnipotence. 
I  can  understand  the  anger  of  God.  Sacrilege 
confuses  Him.  And  We  are  all  alike — We 
Gods.  We  are  forced  into  an  attitude  of  indif- 
ference in  order  that  We  may  keep  Ourselves 
intact.  Thus  We  look  down  with  Consummate 
dispassion  upon  Our  hallucinations — Our 
worlds.  And  it  is  this  dispassion  that  men  wor- 
ship in  Us,  unable  to  understand  Our  lack  of 
interest  and  terrified  by  Our  aloofness  they 
prostrate  themselves  before  an  infinite  mystery. 


[One  Hundred  Thirty-eight] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"Yet,  though  the  theology  of  God  has 
become  the  secret  of  My  unreason,  I  find 
Myself  dangerously  susceptible.  It  is  when  I 
seek  to  appease  My  loneliness  by  raising  one  of 
the  babbling  ones  to  My  side.  He  enters  My 
black  heaven  with  a  pretense  of  gratitude, 
fawning  before  Me  and  accepting  My  fellow- 
ship with  humility.  There  follows  then  a 
moment  of  insidious  diversion.  Slowly  a  con- 
fusion fills  Me.  Yes,  even  I  am  open  to  con- 
fusion. It  is  a  pity  I  have  for  the  babbling  one. 

"I  listen  to  his  complaints.  The  sad-eyed 
Mallare  staring  at  intolerable  visions.  Mal- 
lare,  the  dark  chatterer.  Or  this  other  one — • 
My  friend  the  weeping  lodge  brother.  Yes,  I 
pity  them  and  soothe  them.  But  I  find  Myself 
singularly  moved.  Their  prayers  move  Me. 
They  begin  to  whisper  that  I  return  with  them. 
I  am  tempted  to  follow  them,  to  let  them  take 
My  hand  and  lead  Me  into  their  strange  houses. 

"But  I  smile  in  time  and  My  smile,  fixed 
arid  profound,  overcomes  them.  They  pros- 
trate themselves  once  more  before  the  mystery 


Hundred  Thirty-nine} 


FANTAZIUS     cMALLARE 

of  My  indifference.  And  I  remain  the  God  of 
Mallare. 

"On  this  day  the  dumb  one  sprawled  along 
home  with  me,  there  were  many  curious  things 
happened.  I  had  walked  all  night  in  the  snow 
weary  with  hunger.  Rita,  who  had  driven  me 
into  a  moment  of  fury — I  had  destroyed  her 
for  the  time.  A  strange  destruction  during 
which  I  pummelled  the  air  like  averitable 
madman.  But  the  ruse  had  served  to  rid  me  of 
the  hallucination  for  the  night.  Finally,  tired 
with  walking  and  hunger,  I  fell  from  a  bench 
in  the  park. 

"When  I  awoke  I  recalled  at  once  the  gro- 
tesque struggle  of  the  night.  And  with  this 
dumb,  weeping  creature  dogging  my  steps,  I 
returned  home.  She  was  still  with  me.  I 
smiled,  although  I  confess  there  was  despair  in 
my  thought.  For  I  had  fancied  the  miserable 
business  of  the  night  had  put  an  end  to  the 
hallucination.  No,  she  was  still  there.  She  was 
waiting  for  me  on  the  couch. 

"But  my  mind  had  not  deceived  itself.  It 
was  as  I  had  thought.  I  had  planned  to  rid 


[One  Hundred  Forty] 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

myself  of  her  by  hating  this  phantom  until  my 
hate  had  darkened  it.  Then  there  would  be 
nothing  but  an  imperceptible  shadow  of  her 
remaining,  one  with  which  my  senses  could  no 
longer  seduce  themselves. 

"And  when  I  came  into  the  room  I  saw 
my  plot  was  working.  For  her  eyes  no  longer 
gleamed.  A  radiance  had  left  her. 

"'My  hate  begins  to  operate  upon  this 
chimera,'  I  thought.  I  frowned  at  her  and  sat 
down,  worn  out  with  the  walking  of  the  night. 

"'I  have  undermined  the  infatuation  of 
this  phantom,'  I  thought.  I  would  have  been 
elate  but  it  occurred  to  me  there  was  an  incon- 
sistency. This  dumb  one,  this  sniveling  one,  per- 
sisted. And  how  should  he,  who  was  dependent 
upon  her  death  for  his  existence,  persist  in  her 
presence?'  This  was  a  question  for  Mallare, 
the  indifferent  one.  This  was  a  query  to  answer. 

"Ah,  I  will  write  more  about  this  blub- 
berer,  for  the  answer  to  him  is  piquantly 
involved.  It  is  like  a  head  with  too  many  hats. 


[One  Hundred  Forty-one} 


FANTAZIUS     cMALLARE 

But  not  now — I  will  not  write  about  him  now. 
I  will  only  bear  him  in  mind. 

"She  watched  me  from  the  couch  and  I 
became  aware  of  something.  I  studied  her 
cautiously.  Her  eyes  no  longer  gleamed  with 
love.  There  was  a  radiance  absent. 

"'Aha,'  I  thought,  'she  hates.  Mallare 
recovers  the  strings  to  his  Frankenstein.  His 
puppet  dances  again  to  his  will.  See,  my  senses 
no  longer  leap  to  her.  They  tremble  warily 
before  the  hate  in  her  eyes.' 

"I  watched  her  as  she  watched  me.  And 
then  an  incredible  thing  happened.  She  arose 
from  the  couch  and  came  slowly  toward  me 
and  she  held  a  knife  in  her  hand.  She  came 
toward  me  with  the  knife  at  her  side. 

"  'Clever,'  I  thought.  'In  fact,  a  miracle 
of  cleverness.  This  phantom  has  gone  mad.  It 
is  madder  than  I.  It  fancies  itself  able  to  slay 
me.  It  advances  upon  me  with  its  dagger  of 
mist  and  it  intends  to  fall  upon  me.  This  mys- 
terious logic  that  grows  of  itself  like  a  fungus 
in  darkness,  where  will  it  end?  Already  it 


[One  Hundred  Forty-two} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 


towers  around  me — a  monstrous  weed  rising 
out  of  my  madness,  and  I  am  chilled  by  its 
shadow.' 

"And  I  continued  to  think: 

"'I  desired  to  be  rid  of  her.  My  desire 
finally  overleaped  my  befuddled  senses.  And 
now  this  desire  has  become  a  new  soul  for  my 
phantom.  Yet  I  planned  no  details  in  my  desire. 
I  did  not  will  this  melodramatic  denouement. 
Then  it  is  obvious  that  my  desire  is  like  a  seed 
filled  with  hidden  life.  I  blow  a  thought  into 
my  phantom  and  that  thought  develops  and 
hatches.  This  is  a  phenomenon  to  be  written 
about.' 

"As  I  thought  she  came  closer  and  finally 
stood  over  me.  Her  eyes,  I  observed,  were  com- 
pletely mad.  Yes,  they  were  like  horrible  fires. 
And  her  face  was  a  marvel  of  mimicry.  The 
cleverness  of  my  thought  appalled  me.  I  said 
nothing,  however,  and  watched  her.  She  began 
to  talk.  I  had  become  used  to  this  phase  of  the 
hallucination.  But  this  time  my  senses  shud- 
dered at  her  words.  They  who  had  been  so 


[One  Hundred  Forty-three] 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

eager  to  sate  themselves  in  the  possession  of 
this  chimera  and  who  had  betrayed  my  omni- 
potence, they  now  suffered  the  penalty  of  their 
blindness.  For  it  was  evident  that  to  them,  this 
chimera  was  still  real.  She  was  an  avenger 
towering  with  a  knife  above  them. 

"But  Mallare  smiled. 

"'See,'  he  murmured  aloud,  'here  is  the 
reward  of  your  folly.  You  would  philander 
with  this  shadow.  You  would  disport  yourself 
in  abominable  fornications  with  this  hallucina- 
tion. Very  well,  I  am  amused  at  your  clownish 
terror  even  more  than  I  was  amused  at  your 
burlesque  ecstasies.  Tremble  now  for  here  is 
a  Medusa,  a  Messilina  come  to  destroy  you. 
Whimper  and  grovel,  but  observe  in  your  idiot 
cowardice  how  Mallare,  the  indifferent  one, 
sits  and  smiles — still  supreme,  still  a  spectator 
ravished  by  the  dark  comedy.' 

"I  could  not  resist  this  moment  of  triumph. 
I  laughed  although  there  was  no  one  to  enjoy 
my  laughter.  And  I  watched  her.  She  was  still 
talking,  deep,  meaningless  words.  For  it  was 


[One  Hundred  Forty-four} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

her  habit  to  talk  in  the  gypsy  language  when 
moved.  Often  this  fact  baffled  me.  But  I  per- 
ceive now  that  my  thought  was  a  seed  contain- 
ing my  omniscience  in  microcosm.  God  does 
not  invent  languages  but  He  understands  them 
since  it  is  unnecessary  for  Him  to  know,  in  His 
indifference,  what  they  are  saying.  And  the 
language  my  phantom  spoke,  although  foreign 
to  me,  was  nevertheless  an  integral  part  of  my 
thought — another  of  the  manifestations  with 
which  God  naively  astounds  Himself.  It  is 
His  only  diversion. 

"I  was  curious  concerning  the  effect  upon 
my  senses  of  this  illusory  attack.  And,  I  must 
confess  these  things  simply,  there  came  to  me 
the  idea  that  Mallare  might  be  slain  by  the 
cowardice  of  his  senses.  There  would  be  noth- 
ing illogical  in  that.  For  if  this  chimera  had 
been  able  to  trick  them  into  the  illusion  of  love, 
it  was  entirely  natural  that  it  should  be  able  to 
trick  them  now  into  the  illusion  of  death.  With 
the  exception  that  death  is  an  illusion  even 
Mallare,  the  indifferent  one,  might  not  survive. 


[One  Hundred  Forty-five} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"Ah,  Mallare,  Mallare !  He  wanders  pen- 
sively amid  treacherous  shadows — Mallare — 
an  image  debating  subtly  the  existence  of  its 
mirror.  I  sigh.  But  it  is  one  of  the  relaxations 
of  God — to  pity  Himself  His  uselessness. 

"Her  talk  came  to  an  end  and  she  raised 
her  knife.  Die  or  not,  the  thing  was  too  incred- 
ible a  farce  to  leave  me  unmoved.  Yes,  I 
laughed  out  of  sheer  delight.  The  drollery  of 
this  phantom  hacking  at  Mallare  with  a  non- 
existent dagger  .  .  .  a  mad  windmill  charging 
Don  Quixote!  Superb! 

"I  perceive  now  a  moral  in  the  situation 
that  I  did  not  think  of  at  the  time.  Sacrilege  is 
a  vital  danger  to  God.  His  omnipotence  is 
dependent  upon  the  submission  of  His  crea- 
tures. And  they  who,  inspired  with  the  quaint 
illusion  of  their  own  reality,  turn  upon  Him — 
ah,  they  destroy  themselves.  But  their  destruc- 
tion impoverishes  their  God. 

"At  the  time,  however,  the  spectacle  alone 
and  not  its  significances,  preoccupied  me.  I 
laughed  and  reached  my  hand  to  the  dagger. 
A  sadistic  gesture,  for  I  desired  to  give  my 


[One  Hundred  Forty-six] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

senses  a  taste  of  its  reality  and  thus  enjoy  their 
squirming.  Marvelous  dagger!  The  point  of  it 
was  sharp.  Mallare  can  invent  daggers,  beau- 
tiful daggers  that  poise  melodramatically  over 
his  heart,  that  move  slowly  in  quest  of  his  life's 
blood!  S'death,  a  property  man  of  parts! 

"  'Clever  dagger,'  I  murmured.  'Do  you 
enjoy  the  illusion  of  yourself  as  much  as  this 
chimera  wielding  you  quivers  with  the  illusion 
of  impending  murder?' 

"It  paused  before  me  and  I  nodded.  My 
laughter  had  halted  it.  It  was  evident  that  my 
thought  operating  in  this  phantom  was  con- 
fused by  my  laughter.  I  nodded  again. 

"  'It  would  be  logical  and  extremely  pleas- 
ant,' I  thought,  'if  this  creature,  shrinking 
before  the  sacrilege  of  destroying  its  creator, 
turned  on  itself  and  accomplished  a  more  prob- 
able assassination.' 

"She  stood  before  me  and  I  was  pleased  to 
see  her  hatred  increase.  It  was  amazingly 
vivid.  I  observed  the  viciousness  of  her  fea- 
tures. Her  face  had  become  contorted.  Its  fury 


[One  Hundred  Forty-seven} 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

was  like  a  mask.  But  she  had  dropped  the  knife. 
I  could  not  refrain  smiling  an  encouragement 
at  her — the  naive  applause  an  author  bestows 
upon  his  puppets. 

"But  the  plot  still  contained  surprises.  Yes 
astonishing  denouements  began  to  crowd  the 
stage.  For  she  started  to  undress.  Here  was 
a  trick  that  baffled  Mallare.  I  winced  with 
distaste. 

"  'The  consistency  which  I  have  hitherto 
admired  in  my  madness  seems  rather  dubious.' 
I  thought.  'The  melodrama  of  illusions  grows 
too  improbable.  This  fine  tragedy  crumbles 
into  the  ludicrous.  She  forgets  her  hate.  She 
is  again  Rita,  the  infatuated  one.  A  lightning 
change  that  smacks  of  inferior  vaudeville.  She 
is  about  to  undress  and  resume  her  deplorable 
assaults  upon  my  idiot  senses.  A  poorly  writ- 
ten business.  I  have  a  notion  to  walk  out.' 

"But  I  remained  smiling  at  the  absurdity, 
too  tired  to  leave  my  chair.  I  was  pleased 
to  notice  that  her  nudity  did  not  this  time 
appeal  to  my  doting  madness.  This  marked  an 


[One  Hundred  Forty-eight] 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

improvement — a  foretaste  of  victory.  The  dis- 
integration had  begun. 

"Her  body  was  interesting.  It  was  covered 
with  bruises.  There  were  stains  on  its  flesh. 
At  the  sight  of  them  the  lodge  brother,  the 
sniveling  one  who  had  followed  me  home  in 
the  snow,  set  up  a  veritable  caterwauling.  Here 
was  terrible  evidence  of  the  fellow's  guilt.  The 
bruises  of  course.  An  accomplished  penitent, 
this  blubberer,  able  to  transform  himself  from 
a  Sense  of  Homicidal  Guilt  into  a  mere  feeling 
of  General  Remorse. 

"She  was  not  dead.  Yet  he  lingered.  And 
now,  at  the  sight  of  her  bruises,  he  rushed 
forward  with  inferior  regrets.  He  will  bear 
study,  this  weeping  one.  Of  all  the  sprawling 
Mallares,  he  alone  lacks  logic.  But  I  will  come 
to  him  later.  The  plot  is  more  entertaining  than 
this  incongruous  spectator  weeping  and  hissing 
out  of  turn. 

"She  began  to  talk  once  more  and  wildly. 
The  sense  of  it  dawned  on  me.  She  was  calling 
Goliath.  He  came  shuffling  from  his  usual 


[One  Hundred  Forty-nine] 


FANTAZIUS      cMALLARE 

hiding  place — the  curtains.  A  diverting  little 
monster.  I  bear  him  no  ill  will.  Although  I 
grow  slightly  envious  of  his  madness.  Yet  his 
madness  is  a  terrific  flattery.  It  is  involved  and 
piquant  and  one  of  the  things  that  remain  for 
me  to  study  cautiously.  The  madness  of  Goliath 
and,  of  course,  this  gentleman  Niobe. 

"He  came  out,  a  fact  at  the  time  that  aston- 
ished me.  For  I  had  not  been  aware  of  his 
madness.  He  stood  with  his  bent  and  bulbous 
body  shaking  and  his  hands  resting  like  a  bab- 
oon's on  the  floor.  I  was  noticing  the  excite- 
ment of  his  huge  head  when  it  came  to  me  with 
a  curious  feeling — he  was  looking  at  her.  Yes, 
Goliath  my  servant  was  looking  not  at  me.  But 
at  her! 

"  'Careful,  Mallare,  be  careful,'  I  thought. 
The  insane  sniveling  of  this  lodge  brother  dis- 
tracted me.  His  arms  came  around  me  and  he 
rested  his  head  on  me  and  wept.  Insufferable 
ass!  It  was  impossible  to  think.  I  remained 
with  my  eyes  watching  and  repeating  cau- 
tiously to  myself  the  warning. 


[One  Hundred  Fifty] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"Here  was  a  trick  too  baffling  for  Mallare. 
Mallare  must  suspend  himself,  close  his  eyes 
and  climb  slowly  back  into  his  black  heaven. 

"'Then  Goliath  too  is  a  phantom,'  I 
thought.  'But  careful,  be  careful,  Mallare. 
That  is  too  easy.  And  you  remember.  It  is 
dangerous  to  hide  from  too  many  memories. 
They  will  become  shadows  that  nibble  at 
you.  He  is  not  a  phantom.  Goliath  is  no 
chimera.  He  lives.  He  has  reality. 

"'Then  how  does  it  come,'  I  continued 
thinking,  'that  he  sees  that  which  is  visible  only 
to  you?  His  eyes  are  fastened  on  her  who  is  to 
be  seen  only  inside  the  caverns  of  Mallare.  He 
raises  his  arms.  His  hands  touch  her.  I  am 
imagining  Goliath.  Goliath  is  not  in  the  room. 
This  is  a  memory  of  him  that  has  wandered 
onto  the  scene  of  my  madness.' 

"Here  my  thinking  ended.  I  sat  contem- 
plating the  imbecile,  the  blubberer.  He  pressed 
himslf  upon  me  with  his  shameless  importun- 
ings.  He  snivelled  and  his  lips  moved  with 
my  name.  I  watched  them  say,  'Mallare'  and 


[One  Hundred  Fifty-one] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

repeat  'Mallare'  till  I  grew  dizzy  with  the 
pantomime  of  my  name.  I  will  study  this  later 
and  discover  the  secret  of  his  lips.  My  name 
drifting  continually  over  them  has  a  way  of 
hypnotizing  me.  But  later — later. 

"I  began  thinking  once  more. 

"  'This  lodge  brother  weeps  while  Goliath 
takes  liberties  with  my  phantom.  There  is  a 
connection  there.  But  it  is  unimportant  for  the 
present.  I  must  discover  something  else.' 

"Then,  like  a  victory  too  long  withheld,  it 
came  to  me.  He  was  mad.  Goliath,  my  servant, 
was  mad.  But  more  than  that — a  telepathic 
madness.  I  have  elaborated  my  understanding 
since.  Goliath  suffers  from  a  contagion.  His 
constant  attendance  upon  me  has  proved  fatal 
to  his  stupidity.  His  senses  are  the  victims  of 
my  puppets.  He  has  entered  my  world  and  my 
madness  creates  for  him,  as  it  does  for  me, 
shadows  that  deceive  him.  But  there  is  no 
Mallare  in  him.  Unlike  me,  he  does  not  sit  in 
amused  judgment  upon  himself. 


iOnc  Hundred  Fifty-two] 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"It  is  an  interesting  phenomenon — this 
strange  mesmerism.  It  remains  to  be  studied. 
Goliath  and  I  are  mad  brothers.  This  under- 
standing arrived  in  time.  Or  else  I  would  have 
flung  myself  in  despair  upon  the  ever-implor- 
ing bosom  of  my  lugubrious  sniveler. 

"Rita  was  real  to  Goliath.  I  watched  him 
excitedly  and  continued  to  think.  I  addressed 
myself : 

"  'Observe,'  I  said,  'here  you  have  a  dis- 
tressing visualization.  Goliath,  your  dwarf, 
mimics  your  madness.  And  it  is  not  pleasant 
to  look  at.  His  eyes  roll  with  passion.  His  fat 
lips  chew  upon  lewd  expectations.  His  fingers 
raise  themselves  like  frightened  blasphemies  to 
her  breasts.  And  he  watches  you.  Yes,  his  eyes 
sneak  glimpses  of  you.  For  you  are  his  rival ! 
You  and  this  nigger  monster  are  vaginal  com- 
rades. It  is  pleasant  to  see  that  you  have  the 
decency  to  feel  enraged.  Five  infatuated  Mai- 
lares  sputtered  and  wept  and  gnashed  their 
teeth. 

"As  I  talked  I  turned  my  attention  to  her. 
In  my  excitement  over  Goliath  I  had  ignored 


[O«*  Hundred  Fifty-three] 


FANTAZIUS      eM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

her.  Her  hands  were  fumbling  with  the  clothes 
of  this  doting  rival.  But  her  eyes  were  on  me. 
They  blazed. 

"'This  pantomime  of  shadows  grows 
involved,'  I  thought.  But  I  was  experimenting 
with  rhetoric.  For  the  thing  was  absurdly  sim- 
ple. Hate  still  animated  my  phantom.  And 
this  was  her  revenge.  She  was  about  to  give 
herself  to  the  black  dwarf  Goliath.  She  was 
about  to  commit  sexual  hari-kari. 

"I  watched  her  hands  remove  his  clothes, 
his  red  jacket,  his  fine  shirt.  He  jumped  up 
and  down  like  a  distracted  child,  his  own  hands 
bewildered  with  too  many  activities.  They  fon- 
dled her,  they  tugged  at  his  trousers.  They 
became  insane  and  flapped  at  his  sides.  She 
helped  him,  her  eyes  still  watching  me. 

"'At  last  I  produce  a  horror  worthy  of 
myself,'  I  thought.  'The  mist  dagger  was  melo- 
drama to  be  smiled  at.  But  this — ah,  here  we 
have  a  refinement  that  reduces  death  to  a  minor 
obscenity.  She  attacks  me  now  with  a  weapon 
worthy  my  indifference.  It  is  true,  my  senses 


[One  Hundred  Fifty-four] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

writhe  less  f  rightenedly.  But  I,  Mallare — yes, 
Mallare  the  Supreme  One — honor  her  assault 
with  a  shudder. 

"  'Ah,  who  but  Mallare  could  haveinvented 
so  subtle  a  blasphemy,  so  accomplished  an 
enemy.  It  is  an  old  theological  quibble,  but  I 
understand  it  now.  God  is  the  greatest  atheist. 
He  is  proud  of  a  disbelief  in  Himself. 

"  'Yes,  this  phantom  is  the  atheism  of  Mal- 
lare. And  it  is  at  last  a  true  child.  A  parental 
pride  excites  me.  Like  Mallare,  her  father, 
she  rises  above  herself.  I  have  breathed  the 
soul  of  hate  into  her.  My  hatred  alive  with  a 
cleverness  of  its  own  speaks  to  itself. 

"  'It  says,  'I  am  the  hatred  of  Mallare.  I 
desire  to  murder  him.  I  am  his  phantom,  but 
the  suffering  and  insult  he  has  heaped  upon  me 
grow  unbearable.  His  cruelty  and  coldness 
have  filled  me  with  fury.  I  would  have  killed 
him  but  that  would  have  been  almost  an  infidel- 
ity. For  his  senses  have  been  my  lovers.  I 
remember  them  with  tears.  I  decided  not  to 
kill  him  because  that  would  have  meant  to  kill 


[One  Hundred  Fifty-five] 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

his  senses.  But  this  other  one,  this  Insufferable 
and  Aloof  One — this  Serene  One  staring  amus- 
edly at  me  out  of  His  black  heaven — how  send 
my  hatred  against  him?  Ah,  I  will  conspire 
with  his  senses.  I  am  no  more  than  an  idea  in 
the  head  of  God.  But  the  head  of  God  is  but 
an  idea  that  encircles  me.  I  am  a  phantom 
within  a  phantom.  Thus  I  must  make  myself 
nauseous.  I  must  make  myself  too  hideous.  I 
must  make  myself  so  monstrous  that  the  Idea 
which  contains  me  will  feel  an  anguish.  And 
this  anguish  will  be  the  applause  to  my  hate.' 

"I  sat  shrewdly  silent,  for  the  moment 
was  approaching.  At  last  I  perceived  myself 
behind  the  logic  of  this  Frankenstein.  For  it 
was  I — I,  Mallare — that  was  attacking  myself 
with  this  hatred.  It  was  Mallare  who  was 
arranging  this  little  plot  for  himself.  And 
why?  Because  then  the  head  of  Mallare,  nau- 
seated by  the  vileness  of  the  assault,  would  dis- 
gorge forever  the  hallucination  of  Rita.  It  was 
an  emetic  Mallare  had  found  necessary  to 
administer  to  himself. 


[One  Hundred  Fifty-six} 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"Ah,  my  cleverness  grows  incredible.  I 
am  too  Supreme  to  grasp  Myself.  There  are 
still  unexplored  crevices  in  My  infinity,  and 
out  of  these  continue  to  issue  surprises  that 
divert  Me. 

"Goliath  was  undressed.  His  black  body, 
lumped  and  like  some  mad  caricature  of  itself, 
gleamed  in  the  light. 

"'See,'  I  said.  'Note  this  bulbous  little 
black  man.  For  he  is  a  caricature  not  of  him- 
self but  of  you.  He  is  a  rival  before  whom 
your  senses  wince  as  before  some  unflattering 
image.  Yes — the  image  of  M  alia  re  stands 
saluting  his  charming  chimera  with  an  inter- 
esting Ethiopian  erection.  For  though  they 
differ  in  many  externals,  Mallare  and  Goliath 
are  one.  They  are  ornamented  insulations  for 
an  identical  current.  And  here,  throbbing 
under  an  erection  is  the  current  of  Mallare  and 
of  an  infinity  of  Mallares. 

"  'Ah,  the  penis  of  this  dwarf  is  repellent 
because  that  which  Mallare  so  fondly  called 
his  own — his  desires — is  revealed  to  him  as 


[One  Hundred  Fifty-seven} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

grotesquely  promiscuous.  Yes,  the  penis  is  the 
democratic  tabernacle  of  Life.  Under  its  little 
Moorish  roof,  the  senses  of  the  race  kneel  in 
common  prayer. 

"  'Observe  it,  Mallare.  It  is  the  rendez- 
vous of  expiring  illusions,  the  gathering  place 
of  the  anonymities  which  utilize  man,  beasts 
and  plants.  See  how  this  curious  dwarf  stag- 
gers like  a  bewildered  stranger  in  its  shadow. 
He  is  an  outcast.  He  is  useless.  He  is  no  longer 
necessary.  Life  which  made  a  pretense  of  him, 
enters  its  tabernacle  and  closes  the  doors  on 
him.  Here  is  the  great  secret.  Here  stands  the 
grim  tyrant  before  whose  delicious  wrath  man 
bows  himself  into  annihilations. 

"  'Ah,  what  a  marvelous  tabernacle!  It 
moves  and  Goliath  follows.  It  points  and 
Goliath  runs  after  it.  An  infatuated  tabernacle 
that  fancies  itself  going  to  Heaven !  It  is  proud. 
It  struts.  Goliath  shuffles  after  it  like  a  forlorn 
little  nigger  in  the  wake  of  a  circus.  It  leaps. 
And  Goliath  gallops  after  it.  Aha!  he  lies  on 
his  back  impaled.  But  she!' 


[One  Hundred  Fifty-eight] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"They  were  on  the  couch.  She  sat  beside 
him  but  her  eyes  still  sought  me.  Noises  issued 
from  Goliath.  He  rolled  on  his  back,  kicking 
crooked  legs  and  yelping. 

"I  watched  her  white  body  spread  over 
him.  Her  eyes  left  me  and  my  rhetoric  dwin- 
dled into  a  sigh.  I  was  alone  with  a  spectacle. 
Goliath  masturbating  with  a  phantom — but 
not  as  Mallare  had  done.  No,  not  as  Mallare 
who  had  lain  indifferent  beside  his  Franken- 
stein. For  Goliath's  arms  were  around  her,  his 
legs  entwined  her.  His  body,  an  insanity  in 
itself,  made  a  mate  beneath  her  more  incred- 
ible than  she.  There  was  silence.  Then  she 
screamed! 

"Yes,  Mallare  closed  his  eyes.  A  coldness 
tiptoed  out  of  his  heart.  She  was  laughing. 
Her  laughter  entered  his  ears — a  noise  that 
was  like  a  witch's  flight  of  sound.  But  who  was 
it  laughed?  Mallare,  Mallare  laughed.  It  was 
his  voice  in  the  phantom  that  laughed  at  him. 
It  was  his  hallucination  he  had  loved  that  now 
gave  itself  to  a  little  monster.  And  it  was  his 
hate  that  designed  this  laugh,  a  thing  that 


[One  Hundred  Fifty-nine] 


pierced  the  heaven  in  which  he  sat.  Mallare 
closed  his  eyes,  a  God  shuddering  before  His 
own  atheism.  Yes,  rhetoric  now.  It  is  easy  to 
write.  My  words  embroider  themselves. 

"But  then,  when  the  laugh  struck  Mallare ! 
Ah,  there  was  curious  mutiny.  They  went 
away.  The  little  Mallares  who  worship  me 
went  away,  all  but  one.  The  dumb  one.  Yes, 
I  write  of  him  again.  He  came  to  me  then  and 
his  tears  were  more  horrible  than  the  scream  I 
had  heard.  His  weeping  came  too  close.  His 
weeping  grew  too  loud.  His  arms  embraced 
me  and  he  held  his  face  too  close  to  mine.  And 
my  name  rose  from  his  lips. 

"I  was  alone  with  him  and  my  fingers 
fought  with  his  throat.  This  blubberer  who 
had  followed  me  home  in  the  snow,  yes  this 
insufferable  melancholiac  who  rained  his  tears 
into  my  Heaven — Mallare  would  have  killed 
him. 

"But  he  was  too  sly.  He  slipped  away  and 
sprawled  around  the  room.  He  beat  his  hands 
against  walls  and  tore  at  his  hair.  I  followed 


[One  Hundred  Sixty} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

watching  him  and  coaxing  him  to  come  close 
once  more.  I  smiled  at  him  to  come  near  again. 
But  no,  he  avoided  me.  He  stood  against  the 
curtains  facing  me  and  pointing  his  finger  at 
me.  His  mouth  was  open  but  no  sound  came 
from  it.  There  was  only  the  noise  of  my  phan- 
tom laughing. 

"He  stood  pointing  and  I  watched  my 
name  come  like  a  dead  shout  from  his  lip.  His 
throat  was  alive  with  my  name. 

"<Mallare!' it  said. 

"I  smiled  at  him.  And  I  worshipped  aloud 
so  that  he  might  hear.  I  whispered  to  him  to 
come  close — this  lugubrious  blasphemer  who 
wears  my  name  in  his  throat.  But  his  face 
grew  white.  His  arms  dropped  and  he  leaned 
against  the  curtains.  His  eyes  closed  and  he 
fell.  The  Indifferent  One  remained.  The  smile 
of  Mallare  remained  contemplating  the  pros- 
trate ones. 

"The  couch  was  still  alive.  But  it  was 
dark.  Her  outline  was  already  disintegrating. 
Goliath's  fingers  stared  from  her  back. 


[One  Hundred  Sixty-one} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"  The  dark  comedy  ends,'  I  thought.  'My 
phantom  dissolves  in  a  suicidal  orgasm.  And 
the  little  monster  beneath  her  collapses  amid 
too  sudden  memories.  Finis!  The  revenge  that 
I  so  cleverly  manipulated  is  accomplished. 
And  now  Mallare  disgorges  a  hallucination 
become  too  nauseous.  I  have  fouled  this  pretty 
one  so  that  my  senses  might  abandon  her.  And 
see,  they  whimper  under  me.  The  dumb  one 
lies  in  a  corner  and  even  his  tears  are  ended. 
And  this  sad  eyed  one,  weary  with  intolerable 
visions,  and  this  one  whose  ears  are  filled  with 
voices — all  of  them  whimper  under  me.  But 
I  must  feel  no  pity  for  them.  Mallare  rides 
away  like  a  star.  .  .  . 

"  'And  she  dissolves.  Vale  Rita!  The  red 
and  yellow  dress  again.  Yes  .  .  .  yes — the 
green  and  orange  shawl  again.  Put  them  on. 
Bravo  Rita!  Tragedy  bows  in  a  decorative 
anti-climax.  Little  one,  Mallare  banishes  thee 
from  His  heaven  where  thou  becamest  too  inti- 
mate. Because  thou  sought  to  seduce  His  wor- 
shippers. Vale! — Mallare  disgorges  thee.  Spit 
not  at  Me,  little  one,  for  I  am  only  a  smile.  Spit 


[One  Hundred  Sixty-two} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

at  this  dumb  one,  this  blubberer,  who  has  for- 
gotten himself  in  a  new  sleep.' 


#     *     *     * 


"And  Goliath  weeps.  She  is  gone  and  his 
madness  regrets  her  vanishing.  He  sits  by  day 
and  watches  out  of  the  window.  At  night  I 
have  found  him  staring  at  the  couch  where  he 
lay  with  my  shadow.  He  kneels  beside  it 
with  his  grotesque  arms  flung  out,  embracing 
memories. 

"His  madness  flatters  me.  Yet  it  is  a  thing 
to  be  studied.  His  eyes  are  insane.  They  roll 
continually  in  their  sockets.  He  beats  himself, 
knocking  his  fists  against  his  head.  And  I  have 
discovered  him  on  the  floor  doubled  up,  his 
head  buried  in  his  arms.  He  does  not  hear  me 
but  remains,  while  I  move  around,  immobile 
as  an  idol.  Yes,  little  Goliath  is  mad.  But 
he  cannot  recover  the  illusion  whose  memory 
haunts  his  dark  soul.  He  suffers.  He  beats  his 
head  and  his  tears  are  futile.  For  she  was  mine. 
Mallare  created  her.  Mallare  destroyed  her. 
There  is  a  temptation  at  times  to  return  her — 


[One  Hundred  Sixty-three] 


FANTAZIUS      cMALLARE 

not  to  Mallare  but  to  this  poor  dwarf  who 
expires  under  his5  grief. 

"I  am  tempted  by  his  madness.  Goliath 
has  found  no  God  in  his  black  heaven.  I  would 
be  his  God  and  create  for  him  as  I  may  for 
Myself.  But  I  am  wary  of  such  altruism.  He 
is  still  My  servant  and  looks  after  Me.  But 
My  smile  watches  him  with  caution.  His  eyes 
roll  too  much. 

"Since  I  rid  myself  of  her,  there  has  been 
no  mutiny.  I  sit  and  contemplate  problems 
that  have  grown  too  simple  for  me.  And  when 
I  am  bored  with  studying  Goliath's  madness,  I 
divert  myself  with  my  friend,  the  lodge  brother. 
A  baffling  imbecile  who  withholds  himself 
slyly.  I  have  not  yet  come  to  an  understanding 
with  him.  There  are  too  few  facts  to  go  on. 
He  is  silent.  He  weeps.  My  name  sleeps  for- 
ever on  his  lips.  And  oncd  he  babbled  to  me  of 
blood  on  my  hands.  These  are  the  only  reali- 
ties that  form  a  key  to  him. 

"His  presence  remains  a  discomfort.  We 
sit  and  stare  at  each  other.  And  I  talk  quietly 
to  him. 


[One  Hundred  Sixty-four] 


FANTAZIUS      oM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"  'You  are  an  inconsistent  ass,'  I  say.  'You 
were  first  an  obvious  pathologic  symptom — an 
illusory  conscience  born  to  adorn  the  grief  of 
my  senses  that  fancied  they  had  murdered  Rita, 
the  phantom.  But  then  when  you  found  her 
alive,  what  did  you  do?  Did  you  vanish  as,  in 
all  logic,  you  should?  For  Rita  was  not  mur- 
dered and  therefore  where  the  necessity  of  a 
conscience  to  celebrate  her  crime? 

"  'But  you  remained  and  grew  more  dol- 
orous. Then  you  are  something  else.  I  suspect 
you  of  being  the  adroit  ambassador  the  mad- 
men have  sent  into  my  heaven  to  plead  their 
cause.  Yet  why  do  you  not  plead?  As  an 
ambassador  you  are  a  tongue-tied,  sniveling 
idiot.  Therefore  again,  you  escape  logic.  And 
without  logic  my  madness  becomes  slyly  incom- 
prehensible to  me. 

"  We  watch  each  other  like  two  careful 
wrestlers,  eh?  But  what  hold  do  you  want? 
Tell  me  and  I  will  let  you  try  your  strength. 
No — tears,  nothing  else.  You  weep,  weep  until 
the  sight  of  you  is  an  impossible  ennui. 


[One  Hundred  Sixty-fiz\c] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"  'Ah,  perhaps  you  are  a  memory  of  Mal- 
lare.  Something  forgotten.  Logic  approaches 
you  as  I  think.  Something  forgotten.  And  you 
are  overcome  at  my  infidelity.  Like  Goliath 
you  mourn  a  vanished  one.  But  there  is  this 
difference.  Whereas  Goliath  is  real  and  the 
object  of  his  mourning  is  a  phantom — you  and 
not  I  are  the  phantom.  Yes,  a  phantom  mourns 
me.  But  speak  then.  I  have  no  objection  to 
memory.  Let  me  hear  what  this  is  all  about 
and  I  will  admit  what  you  say.  I  will  admit  it 
all  beforehand. 

"  'But  no.  You  expect  something  else.  You 
expect  Mallare  to  fall  at  your  feet  and  embrace 
you.  I  can  see  that  in  your  eyes — a  monotonous 
expectation  that  grows  ludicrous.  Yes,  your 
tears  grow  ludicrous.  I  tolerate  you  for  only 
one  purpose.  You  are  a  problem  that  diverts 
me.  For  if  I  desired  I  could  do  with  you  as  I 
did  with  Rita.  There  are  ways  to  make  you 
too  nauseous. 

"  'Yes,  I  might  invent  another  hate  for 
myself.  My  hands  might  tear  you  as  they  tore 


[One  Hundred  Sixty-six] 


FANTAZIUS      cMALLARE 

her.  And  then,  filled  with  a  fury  against  me, 
you  too  might  turn  to  Goliath.  He  is  still  mad, 
my  dwarf,  and  susceptible  to  the  phantoms  I 
send  him.  Do  you  want  to  go  to  him  as  she  did  ? 
Aha!  You  wince.  Remember  then  that  Mal- 
lare  has  it  in  his  power  to  send  you  to  his 
dwarf,  to  make  you  take  her  place  over  his 
terrible  body.  And  Mallare  will  do  this  if  you 
annoy  him  too  much.  And  then,  sickened  with 
you  as  he  was  with  her,  he  will  disgorge  another 
shadow.  Let  us  be  frank  about  this.  I  warn 
you.' 

"Thus  I  sit  and  talk  quietly  to  this  weep- 
ing one.  And  when  I  stop  I  watch  his  lips 
move  with  my  name. 

"'Mallare,'  they  say. 

"This  is  his  only  answer  to  my  overtures. 
But  I  will  win  him  over.  He  will  come  close 
to  my  smile  and  kneel  finally  before  me.  He 
will  confess  who  he  is  and  what  myname  means. 

"I  grow  tired.  Goliath  stands  by  his  shrine 
and  weeps.  He  waits  beside  a  couch  as  if  it 
were  another  Mallare  able  to  give  birth  to  a 


[One  Hundred  Sixty-seven] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 


phantom.  Poor  dwarf,  unlike  Mallare  he  has 
not  learned  that  suffering  is  an  illusion,  that 
couches  and  Medusas  are  illusions.  Unlike 
Mallare  there  is  no  smile  hanging  its  star  above 
him. 

"Sleep  comes.  A  forgotten  world  babbles 
with  shadows  outside  my  windows.  It  is  time 
to  say  goodnight  to  my  friend,  the  lodge  brother. 
Turn  your  tears  to  the  cold  moon,  my  friend. 
Mallare  goes  away.  Far  away  into  a  house 
where  he  is  alone." 


[One  Hundred  Sixty-eight] 


[IX] 


HE  last  entry  in  the  Journal 
of  Mallare — undated. 

"Talk  to  me,  Mallare. 
Tell  me.  Where  am  I?  He 
grows  larger,  this  dumb  one. 
He  moves  away,  growing 
larger.  He  defies  distance. 
He  grows  too  large  to  see. 
But  his  tears  remain. 

"Whisper  to  me,  Mallare.  He  vanishes 
and  I  must  sneak  after  him.  Call  me  back. 
He  is  strange.  His  darkness  lures  me  out  of 
my  heaven.  A  little  whisper  will  save  me.  You 
will  say  to  me,  'Here  is  God.'  I  will  come  back. 
aMy  words  tire  of  him.  He  will  not  listen. 
His  tears!  dear  God,  are  You  so  human  that 


[One  Hundred  Sixty-nine] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

they  silence  You?  He  has  come  into  my  loneli- 
ness. And  there  is  no  use  debating  with  him  any 
longer.  Since  he  followed  me  home  in  the  snow 
his  weeping  has  never  wavered.  I  must  talk 
not  to  him  but  to  Mallare.  I  must  debate  with 
Mallare.  But  where  is  he,  this  Supreme  One? 
Mallare,  where  art  thou? 

"Yes,  my  madness  becomes  an  increasing 
novelty.  I  remain.  But  I  grow  smaller.  I  am 
too  small.  Where  is  my  smile?  It  hides  from 
me.  But  his  tears  fall.  This  dumb  one  knows 
how  to  weep.  Alas,  I  drown. 

"Come  to  my  side.  I  will  whisper.  I  am 
in  love.  Yes,  do  not  be  astonished.  I  am  in 
love  with  her.  You  recall  her?  She  was  like  a 
curtain  fluttering  before  the  door  of  enchant- 
ments. Her  breasts  were  like  little  blind  faces 
raised  in  prayer.  Yes,  Rita,  my  radiant  one. 
The  phantom  I  constructed.  The  Phoenix  that 
arose  in  my  soul.  And  that  I  slew  again.  I  am 
in  love.  But  my  magic  no  longer  works.  She 
does  not  return. 


[One  Hundred  Seventy] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

"I  will  whisper.  I  kneel  with  Goliath 
beside  the  couch.  Ah,  Mallare,  Mallare — I 
am  mad  with  love.  I  weep  and  beat  my  head. 
And  this  other  one  calls  me  away.  His  shape 
grows  larger  and  his  darkness  lifts  me  toward 
it.  He  pulls  me  from  the  couch.  Talk  to  me, 
Mallare.  I  am  mad,  but  talk  to  me  and  I  will 
understand.  Dear,  shining  Mallare  .  .  .  Tell 
me  'no'  and  I  will  break  my  love.  I  will  put 
my  fist  through  the  window  out  of  which  I 
watch  for  her.  And  it  will  be  finished. 

"But  I  weep.  My  eyes  have  caught  his 
trick.  I  weep  for  her.  Do  you  understand  this  ? 
My  beautiful  one  whom  I  disgorged.  Yes, 
Rita.  I  die  with  love  of  her.  I  kneel  by  the 
bed  that  knew  her.  Whisper  back  to  me,  Mal- 
lare, that  I  am  mad.  And  I  will  laugh.  But 
without  you  I  grow  too  small  to  laugh. 

"There  is  pain  in  the  shadows.  I  ask, 
where  am  I?  Go  way,  then,  Mallare.  Leave 
me.  I  persist  without  Mallare.  I  remain.  Let 
me  dissolve  into  this.  Let  me  sprawl  before 
the  door  of  enchantments.  It  is  illusion.  Let 


[One  Hundred  Seventy-one} 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

it  be.  She  will  come  out.  Rita,  my  vanished 
one,  come  back  to  me.  It  is  I  who  ask.  Not  the 
Cold  One,  not  the  Indifferent  One,  not  Mal- 
lare.  But  I  ...  I. 

"I  will  hold  you  in  my  arms.  I  will  feed 
your  mist  with  kisses.  My  body  will  warm  you. 
I  will  be  kind.  I  am  not  Mallare.  He  is  gone. 
He  hides.  He  will  not  come  back.  I  will  kneel 
before  the  door  that  sings  with  you.  I  am  mad 
with  love.  See,  Rita,  I  am  like  Goliath.  My 
eyes  roll.  I  am  mad  and  you  may  come  to  me 
without  fear. 

"Windows  break  in  me  again.  I  remem- 
ber this  from  long  ago.  Hey,  you  blubbering 
one !  Do  you  want  me !  Hey,  you  brother  sniv- 
eler, come  back!  I  laugh.  Do  you  understand 
this?  A  laughter  without  definitions.  Ah,  for- 
give me.  You  sat  and  wept  and  I  scolded. 
Come  back  and  sit  again.  I  will  fall  at  your 
feet.  Your  eyes  asked  that.  But  now — where 
are  your  feet?  There  is  no  shape.  How  am  I 
to  know  where?  Come  back.  Here,  sit  in  this 
chair  beside  me.  God!  In  silence,  I  utter  my 


[One  Hundred  Serenty-two] 


FANTAZIUS      cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

name.    But  it  is  a  name  that  has  flown  away, 
flown  away. 

"Hey,  you,  bring  me  my  name.  The  little 
name,  the  one  that  made  a  pantomime  on  your 
lips.  The  one  that  stared  at  me  with  letters. 
Bring  me  my  name,  I  will  understand  its 
meaning.  My  other  name  has  flown  away. 
Listen.  Let  me  whisper.  Bring  it  to  me  and  I 
will  place  it  like  a  gate  before  the  door  of 
enchantments.  I  will  kneel  to  it.  Windows 
break  in  my  head.  Mallare  .  .  .  are  you 
Mallare?  No,  you  are  this.  You  are  a  babble 
of  words  that  stands  on  its  nose. 

"Laugh  at  me,  Mallare.  Let  me  hear  your 
laugh  far  away.  Or  I  go.  Listen,  Mallare.  I 
turn  my  back  on  this  darkness.  I  do  not  kneel 
at  empty  couches.  No.  I  wait  for  you.  You  were 
my  God.  You,  the  One  who  contemplated. 
Yes,  my  arms  are  out  to  You.  Come  ...  a 
whisper  out  of  silences.  Hey,  Mallare.  I  dis- 
solve. I  become  a  little  phantom.  A  useless 
little  phantom.  I  drift  like  Rita.  And  they 
attack  me.  Hands,  voices  and  trembling  ones. 
They  are  brave  because  it  is  dark.  Your  wor- 


[One  Hundred  Seventy-three} 


FANTAZIUS     cM  A  L  L  A  R  E 

shippers,  Mallare,  they  turn  on  me.  They  break 
windows.    Pity  me.  This  is  the  cross. 

•unary  no*  ^«  ,^» 


[One  Hundred  Seventy-four] 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


